Tina made her way down the corridor, flicking on the light as she did so, and stopped at Kent’s bedroom.

It was surprisingly spacious, with ancient-looking wardrobes rising up on either side of an unmade double bed with sheets that were badly in need of a wash. A framed Van Gogh print of a night scene hung, slightly crooked, above the bed and there was a stack of paperback books on the bedside table, one of which was Nicholas Nickleby.

DCs Anji Rodriguez and Grier were already in there. Rodriguez was going through one of the wardrobes, patting down various items of Kent’s clothing with the kind of ferocity that suggested she was imagining he was still in them, before chucking each item on to a pile next to her. She looked in a bad mood, courtesy no doubt of being made to look a fool during the arrest, and she didn’t look round as Tina came in. Grier, meanwhile, was on his hands and knees pulling open the bedside table drawers, and sifting through Kent’s underwear. He gave her a brief nod and went back to his work while she stood in the doorway thinking that it was hard to come to terms with what made murderers tick. To all intents and purposes, they lived just like anyone else. Watching soap operas, eating takeaways, reading Charles Dickens novels. Yet they could carry out crimes so horrific that it was almost impossible for a normal human being to comprehend them. And Andrew Kent’s crimes were about as bad as they got. Tina had seen what his victims had looked like after he’d finished with them. Tied helpless to their beds and beaten so savagely that they were rendered utterly unrecognizable. Mutilated both before and after death in ways that had made some of the officers on the scene physically sick. It was the main reason Tina had taken so much pleasure in spraying the bastard with the gas and hitting him with all her strength as he’d lain incapacitated in front of her.