Alex left Gavin Jones’s house and headed back down the valley. She hadn’t told Chloe where she was going, knowing there was little point until her suspicions were proved correct. She had found out the previous day where Christian Coleman was staying, intent on paying him a visit. Gavin’s murder made the need to see Christian more urgent. Maybe everyone else was right: perhaps the Hassan brothers were responsible for the murder. But Alex wasn’t so sure.

Had Christian found out about the relationship between Sian and Gavin? From what Alex knew of the man, he wouldn’t be happy about Sian moving on with anyone. He might not have wanted to be with her, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to find happiness without him. Christian was a man who liked to maintain control, and everyone knew what he was capable of. To Alex’s mind, the bloody scene they had just encountered was more likely to be the handiwork of Christian Coleman than Syed Hassan.

She might not have been prepared to face him for her own sake, but for the case she was ready to swallow her fears.

Perhaps it was stupid going to see him alone, she thought as she pulled up outside his address, but stupid seemed to be her speciality that week. She had already resolved not to go inside the house. She would stay on the doorstop, on the street where people could see them.

With clammy hands and an unease she didn’t want to make visible, she knocked on the front door. A moment later, a woman in her mid sixties answered. She had lanky hair that was dyed black, with a strip of grey roots racing down the middle of her scalp like a runway. She was holding a cigarette in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other. This was Christian Coleman’s aunt, Mandy Lewis.

‘Yeah?’

‘Christian in?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘I am.’

The woman raised an eyebrow and stood her ground, moving the hand that held the burning cigarette to her hip. Alex reached into the pocket of her jacket and produced her ID. ‘We spoke on the phone.’

The woman sighed and turned back to the house. ‘Christian!’ she called. ‘Some copper wants you.’

She disappeared back down the hallway, leaving Alex waiting at the front door. A moment later there was a thundering of footsteps on the stairs and the bulk of Christian Coleman loomed towards her. He hadn’t changed in the time since Alex had last seen him, other than for the widening expanse of gut that strained beneath his T-shirt.

‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘Nice to see you too. How’s freedom treating you?’

Christian narrowed his eyes and glared at her. The scar on the side of his face glinted beneath the orange glow of his aunt’s hallway lighting: a single bulb that dangled naked from the ceiling, dressed only with a thick cobweb that stretched to the picture rail.

‘What do you want?’ he asked again.

‘Sian’s been in hospital,’ Alex told him. ‘You’ve probably heard.’

Christian shook his head. ‘Nope. Not heard a thing. What’s wrong with her?’

‘You put her there, Christian. You don’t need to ask.’

His eyes darkened. ‘If I’m being accused of something, you’d better come out and say it. I haven’t seen Sian.’

‘Now we both know that’s a lie. You’ve been to the house.’

‘I didn’t touch her,’ he said, his story altering under duress. ‘So whatever the lying cow has said to you, you’d better check your facts.’

‘We’ve heard that one before. “I didn’t touch her.”’

‘Look,’ he said, stepping out of the house and standing on the pavement in his socks. ‘When I left her house she was fine. Your lot would know that … they saw me out. We talked about Nathan a bit, that was all. Whatever happened to her, it weren’t nothing to do with me.’

Alex stood her ground, her confidence growing. She would never get an admission from him, but she wanted him to know she was on to him.

‘Gavin Jones,’ she said. ‘Know him?’

Christian’s mouth curled into a sneer. ‘Not exactly an unusual name, is it? How many Gavin Joneses are there knocking about?’

‘Do you know him?’ Alex asked again, her lack of patience obvious.

Christian said nothing, enjoying his little moment of power over her. ‘Can’t say I do,’ he eventually offered. ‘Sorry.’

‘Let’s talk about my house then. The car. Must be disappointing to see me standing here unscathed.’

Christian folded his beefy arms across his chest and sighed. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘“I’ll fucking kill you, you ugly whore”,’ Alex said, her fingers raised to make inverted commas in the air.

A second sneer spread across his face. ‘Stand here talking shit much longer and I might just carry out the threat.’

Alex felt another ripple of unease pass through her. She pictured him in Gavin’s living room, raining a flurry of brutal stab wounds upon his victim. Had he attacked Gavin armed with a knife in each hand? Gavin hadn’t stood a chance.

She held his gaze. There was no way she was going to allow him to witness her fear.

‘Are we done here?’ Christian asked, dropping his hands to his sides.

‘No. Sian’s middle name – Kathleen.’

‘What about it? Christ, these questions are getting weirder by the minute.’

‘Family name, is it?’

He exhaled loudly, making it clear that Alex was wasting his time. She wondered what television programme she was keeping him away from.

‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘After her grandmother. A tradition, apparently. Stupid, if you ask me.’

‘What do you mean, tradition?

‘Tradition,’ he said, slowing his voice as though Alex was either thick or hard of hearing, ‘as in something that’s been passed down to the next generation. Nathan was spared, mind, what with being a boy. Now are we done?’

Alex stepped off the pavement to return to her car, leaving Christian to go back inside the house. Her mind had left Sian; it had left the graffiti on her house and the cut brake line on her car. Her thoughts were instead stuck in one place: one awful idea that was already starting to unravel as a terrifying possibility.

Keeley Kathleen.