‘I took the liberty of ordering for you.’ Touchy greets me with a wan smile and a Jack and coke. Another one.

‘I’m on duty, Fiona,’ I say, ‘and I’ve had one already today.’

‘Boozing on the job, Dan?’ she smiles, ‘that’s not like you.’

‘This has better be good. I cut a date short to meet you.’

She raises her brows. ‘A date?’

I shake my head as she stands to greet me.

‘Yeah, I am now officially one of those online singles statistics, dipping my toes in the lottery that is internet dating, answers to the name of Sad Sack.’ I don’t know why I’m being so candid with her; I haven’t seen the woman in years and she’s a journalist. But it feels oddly cathartic to tell someone.

She laughs wryly. ‘Welcome to my world.’

‘Ah, you too, eh?’

She shrugs.

‘How else is a single mum who works practically 24/7 supposed to meet anyone these days? So, any good? The date I mean?’

‘Well, because of you I now owe her dinner, so like I say, this had better be worth it.’

She smiles. ‘It’s good to see you, Dan.’

‘It’s good to see you too, Fi.’ It is, actually. I give her a hug. She smells good. She looks good too. In fact, I’d forgotten how attractive she is. It’s been a little over fifteen months since I saw her last, at the trial. ‘And just for the record, there’s been no one since Rachel. Not like that anyway.’

She releases herself from my embrace gently.

‘You don’t need to explain,’ she says, almost shyly, ‘I understand. And hey, I’m pleased for you Dan, you deserve happiness.’

‘Well, let’s not jump the gun eh? She seems nice, she’s local and she could string a sentence together, so I guess there’s potential there.’

We stand uncomfortably for a few seconds, it feels like longer and I smile at her awkwardly as we sit.

‘So, how’s tricks then? Still snouting for the Gazette? I thought you’d have been snapped up by the nationals long ago… or The Sun at least.’ I’m ribbing her, albeit without any real malice because she’s a good journo really, a decent crime reporter, and I suppose I saw bigger things for her future than the local gazette. Besides, I only take the piss out of people I like.

‘Same shit, different day,’ she sighs, sipping her drink.

She’s a red wine woman. I can only drink red wine with a meal and even then it never really goes down well. A connoisseur I am not. But thanks to the old man I can order a bottle in a restaurant without looking like a total chump. He’s a wine buff, bangs on about the stuff like it genuinely matters. I guess it does to him anyway, or at least it has since Mum went, ‘passes the time, Danny Boy,’ he says, though frankly I think it’s just an excuse for him to get pissed.

‘You know what it’s like, Dan, you’re so busy doing the job there’s not much time to look elsewhere. Anyway, it suits me for now, if I went to the nationals then I’d never see Cody; I’d have to hire a proper nanny and then I could kiss goodbye to the extra money I might earn anyway; swings and roundabouts, you know?’

I’d completely forgotten that Fi had a young son but now she’s mentioned him it comes back to me. She’d spoken about him during the trial, he must only have been a babe in arms at the time. I think I recall her saying the dad had done the off before he was born, decent bloke. I feel a little ashamed that I’d forgotten this; forgotten that other people were going through difficult times of their own back then.

‘How is the little man?’ I ask.

‘Not so little any more,’ she raises a neat arched brow. ‘He’s at preschool now. A right handful.’

I laugh, imagining his face and wondering if he has his mother’s eyes.

‘Jesus,’ I say, ‘time… it stops for no one eh, Touchy?’

She snorts softly. ‘Ain’t that the truth. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you…’

‘… no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun – Pink Floyd, “Dark Side of the Moon”.’

Fi laughs.

‘You haven’t changed,’ she says. But we both know I have.

‘So,’ I say, ‘you wanted to see me… I’m guessing this is about the Nigel Baxter case.’

‘Partly.’ I hear caution in her voice. Makes me edgy.

‘What can I tell you, Fi?’ I ask. ‘It’s like I explained, there’s not much so far, though your source might be able to shed some light… You think you can get her to contact me? Give me a name, something…? If Baxter is involved in a dogging ring, he clearly had more going on than a round of golf.’ I decide to lay my cards on the table. Seeing Fiona in the flesh again has reminded me that I do actually trust her, or at least that I’m prepared to.

‘Truth is Fi, we’ve got nothing. Look, off the record, all we’ve got is a platinum-blonde female on CCTV who was seen going into his penthouse suite, a brunette we can’t identify leaving the hotel… a teddy-bear calling card, or at least that’s what I think it was, a murder made to look like suicide and no motive. I’ve also got a sad, destroyed, middle-aged woman and two teenage kids without a father, who on top of their trauma are about to find out their dad was into dogging, which I’m sure will go down a treat with their mates at school. What do you reckon?’

She looks down at her lap.

‘You know it’s my job,’ she says.

It’s my turn to sigh.

‘I hope this source is legit.’

Fi nods. ‘She says Baxter and this blonde girl were only up at the site twice, or twice that she recalls anyway, and she’s a regular, you know. She recognised his picture from the paper and got in touch. She’s a brass, specialises in that kind of kinky stuff, got some very high-profile clients, politicians, celebrities, judges; she’s got more shit on people in the spotlight than Armitage Shanks sees in a year. She could bring a lot of people down with her if she wanted to.’

‘Hmm, I’ll bet, saving it for her pension plan no doubt. Anyway, we’re tracing the IP addresses and phone records,’ I say, ‘so I’m banking on a decent lead from there. If we get a name for this blonde, then the least we can do is rule her out.’

‘Did he leave a note, a suicide note?’ she asks and I ponder over whether I should answer the question and tell the truth, to a journalist.

I nod, leaning back against the bench.

‘This is off the record, Touchy,’ I’m using her nickname but my voice is earnest.

‘“My darling, I’m sorry for everything, please forgive me.” It was signed, “Daddy Bear”.’

She blinks at me. ‘You mentioned teddy bears earlier…’

‘Yeah, but the wife never referred to him as Daddy Bear, or anything remotely like it by all accounts; she looked at me blankly when I mentioned the name… I don’t think the letter was even written for her, although I think it was supposed to look like it was.’ I’m shaking my head as if somehow all the jumbled-up pieces might fall into place with a bit of reshuffling. ‘All very rudimentary, a half-arsed job, you know.’

‘Why make a murder look like suicide if you wanted it to be discovered as a murder anyway?’

I open my palms. ‘That’s the six-million-dollar question, Touchy – and also what I’m getting paid for.’ I cross my legs and tap my fingers on the table. ‘A message maybe, fuck, I don’t know. She wanted it to look like suicide for a reason though, staged it well enough to make sure it appeared to be at first, but even the untrained eye would’ve seen through it with a more thorough glance.’ I tell her about the crime scene, the hotel room, the teddy bear, the towel behind Nigel Baxter’s fleshy back, the absent flannel and the missing bath oil.

She’s listening intently, but there’s something bothering her, the way her almond-shaped eyes keep darting back and forth and avoiding my own, I can tell. Body language. It’s as good as a confession sometimes.

‘Blackmail?’ she says, ‘money?’

‘S and M.’ I snort. ‘Sex and money, the two greatest motives for murder.’ I lean forward again, ‘Only I don’t think it was for either, not in this case.’

Fiona looks at me; she has a little red wine residue around the upper corners of her mouth. Rach used to call it a ‘tinto tasch.’ I contemplate telling her but decide against it.

‘So what then?’

I pause. ‘I think we’re dealing with a serial killer.’ I’ve gone and done an Ed Sheeran: thinking out loud.

She goes to take a sip of her wine, but my revelation has stopped her in her tracks and she places it back on the table. I have this effect on women.

‘Serial Killer? What makes you say that?’

I run my hands through my hair, grateful I still have some. ‘This is off the record, Fi, you understand me? Print this and I’ll come after you personally.’

Her eyes are shining like glass beads. ‘Promises, promises.’

‘I’m being serious,’ I say, which oddly never sounds serious when you say it, but I really mean it. ‘The girl, the blonde, who I’m suspecting is the same blonde your brass pal saw with Baxter up on Hampstead Heath, well, they met on some sugar daddy hook-up site. Called herself Goldilocks.’

‘Okay…’

I look at the Jack and coke in front of me. Tempting. Fiona is staring at me blankly.

‘C’mon Touchy, surely you know the fairy tale? You must’ve told it to Cody before?’

‘Yeah, course, but I don’t understand… Oh, hang on.’ I can visibly see the penny dropping by her expression. ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears!’

‘Yup,’ I say, refraining from giving her a round of applause. ‘The three bears.’

She finally takes a slug of wine. ‘Oh Jesus, but that means… well, there was Daddy Bear… Mummy Bear and…’

‘… Baby bear. Yeah, I know.’

Her face contorts. ‘Fuck Dan…’

‘Look, it’s just a theory right now – something I’m thinking about. But we’ve got no obvious motive, not yet anyway. I don’t think this was about money. There was cash in his wallet, and his Rolex was still there on the bedside table. This was no robbery.’

She audibly exhales. ‘Well, I hope to God you’re wrong is all I can say.’

‘Well, it’s been known.’ But we both know that it’s something I try not to make a habit of. ‘I guess there’s only one way to be sure,’ Fiona says, which is exactly what I’m afraid of.

‘I don’t know, Fi, I don’t like it. Got a bad feeling about this one…’

She slides her hand across the table and touches mine. I’m not expecting this, but I don’t pull away. It feels strangely good and reminds me how much I miss human contact. Touching. I think of Florence then, her eyes as she’d said that word. Perhaps we’d be in bed right now if it wasn’t for Touchy here. I don’t know whether I’m grateful or pissed off. ‘Dan…’ She’s looking at me nervously; her pupils are dilating.

‘So, out with it then,’ I say, sensing her apprehension. ‘You said “partly” before, that you were here to talk about the Baxter murder, partly.’ I glance at her hand on mine. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been harbouring impure thoughts about me all these years?’ I’m joking because I don’t like the look on her face. Although to be honest if she did tell me that I wouldn’t be too upset.

She’s looking down at her lap again now, she pulls her hand away and tucks her black shiny hair behind her ears. I get a waft of her perfume. Spicy. Oriental.

‘Craig Mathers,’ she says.

My blood runs icy. His name does that to me. Instinctively I pull away and fold my arms across my chest.

‘What about him?’

‘He’s been released… good behaviour apparently.’

I nod. I’ve been expecting it I suppose, knew it was coming. Good behaviour. Joke really isn’t it? Released after serving half your sentence for ‘good behaviour’. I’m sure most people can see the irony in that statement. The words ‘murderer’ and ‘good behaviour’ don’t really belong together in the same sentence. You commit a crime, get sent down for let’s say two years, as in Mathers’ case, and because you keep your nose clean behind the door you’re let out after serving less than half your sentence. You’re actually rewarded for being good while you’re serving time for doing something bad. Like I’ve said before: I believe in the justice system, but hey, I didn’t say it isn’t flawed.

‘So, the bastard’s going to get out and get his life back. Lucky him. Shame Rachel can’t do the same isn’t it?’

She casts me a downward look.

‘I know,’ she says, softly, ‘I thought you should be aware… I got a tip-off from someone at the parole board.’

I don’t really know much about Craig Mathers, just the basics, and that’s deliberate on my part. I don’t want to know anything about him: his family background; his friendships or relationships; whether his mates and colleagues thought him to be of good character, which incidentally they seemed to at the trial. And I’ll tell you why. I didn’t and I don’t want to humanise him because then I might not hate him as much as I do. Because if I didn’t hate him I would have to put that hatred somewhere else, and where would it go? Who was it who said, ‘let no man take me so low as to hate him?’ Was it Martin Luther King Jr.? One of them great people anyway. I’d like to think I could live by that statement, and I think I used to once, but when you lose the love of your life to a jumped-up little prick who gets behind the wheel of a car after ten pints and kills someone, it changes you. It knocked me sick to hear his family and friends gushing on about what a ‘decent’ and ‘reliable’ bloke he was in court, and how he’d never been in any real trouble before and was a ‘responsible adult’ previously of good character. I remember his father, who he worked with as a painter decorator and seemed like a credible, normal bloke – and he probably is – he had nothing but praises to sing about his ‘hardworking’ son. And yet I just didn’t buy it; there was something in his eyes, it’s always in their eyes. Eyes tell you everything you need to know about a person, it’s a cliché but it’s true. In Mathers’ case they were small and black with nothing behind them. Evil little black holes. I wondered if I could love a son with eyes like that? But I never got the chance to find out, and maybe I never will now. So yeah, it pissed me off to hear about what a ‘likeable’ bloke he was, because he killed my girl. He changed my future.

‘I’m sorry, Dan,’ Fi says, ‘apparently he’s going back to live at his mother’s address with his girlfriend. I just wanted to warn you, I don’t want to upset you, I just thought… well, I just thought you’d want to know… that I’d want to know.’

I hold her glassy-eyed gaze for a moment as I let the words sink in, before picking up the Jack and coke in front of me and downing the glass in one.

‘Thanks Touchy,’ I say, as thoughts of exacting revenge run like a marathon through my mind, ‘you’re a pal.’