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packet at Banbury.
    ‘No thanks. I’m going to close up here, then.’ Banbury stopped in the doorway and looked back. ‘It’s almost inconceivable that someone can operate as a lone agent in a city this size. You wouldn’t think it possible. We’ve got four million CCTVs beaming down on us, rampant personal data encryption and local authority surveillance—and yet he can still make himself invisible.’
    ‘Urban life has an alienating effect on all of us, Dan. When was the last time someone smiled at you in a shop or you actually talked to someone on the tube? Mr Fox has learned to adapt. He embraces the new darkness. He has the tools to control it. His life unfolds inside his head. I need to know what he’s planning next.’
    ‘I don’t know how you can find that out. He’s a murderer, Mr Bryant. He’s different from everybody else.’
    ‘Maybe he always has been. What happened to create the void in him? There’s a danger that when you pack up from here, tape the front door shut and leave, we may never see or hear from him again, do you understand? I can’t let that happen.’
    Banbury shrugged. ‘I’ve done my best but I can’t work with what isn’t there.’
    ‘We’re supposed to specialise in finding out what isn’t there. Find me something.’
    ‘Some people’—Banbury sought the right phrase—‘don’t have a key that unlocks them. But if Mr Fox does, I’m willing to bet it’ll be in his formative years, between the ages of, say, seven and twelve. It won’t tell us where he is now, of course—’
    ‘Maybe not, but it’s a place to start,’ Bryant interrupted. ‘Keep looking, and leave everything exactly where it is, just in case he decides to come back. I’ll see if we can run surveillance for a few days at least.’
    Bryant was about to leave, then stopped. In the open bathroom cabinet he could see a small white plastic pot. Removing it, he checked inside. ‘He wears contacts. The case is still wet, and there’s what looks like an eyelash. Can you run this through your DNA database?’
    ‘Depends on whether the saline solution has corrupted the sample. But I’ll give it my best shot.’
    ‘You’ll need to. We don’t have anything else.’
    ‘Do you think he’s insane?’
    ‘We’re all mad,’ Bryant replied unhelpfully. ‘That chap Ted Bundy was working as a suicide prevention officer while he was murdering women. In 1581, the test of legal insanity was based upon an understanding of good and evil. A defendant needed to prove that he couldn’t distinguish between right and wrong. But what if he could prove it, and still commit atrocities? The insanity ruling was amended to allow for those who couldn’t resist the impulse to kill. Nowadays, that clause has been removed because serial killers don’t fit the legal definition of insanity. They accumulate weapons, plan their attacks, hide evidence and avoid detection for years, so it’s clear they should know right from wrong. They certainly appear to be making informed choices. Voices in the brain? Perhaps. Something in the darkness speaks to them.’
    ‘I thought you didn’t know anything about serial killers,’ said Banbury.
    ‘I don’t,’ Bryant replied. ‘But I’ve seen the things that make men mad.’

FIVE

Trouble
    D etective Sergeant Janice Longbright was not exactly the tearful type. Longbright had been around police stations all her life, and it took a lot to upset her.
    When she was seven years old, she had been sitting in the public area of the old cop shop in Bow Street, waiting for her mother to come off duty, when a distressed young man walked in and cut his wrists with a straight razor, right in front of her. The scarlet ribbons that unfurled from his scraggy white arms were shocking, certainly, but she’d been fascinated by the trail of blood splashes he left as he walked on through the hall, because for two weeks before that, she had been seeing their pattern whenever she shut her eyes. His