“… because they like salivating over dirty little things that excite them, as an outlet for their own unacceptable urges,” said Creed. “I could’ve been a doctor, probably should have been, actually…”

(He’d poured cooking oil over dinner lady Vera Kenny’s head, then set her hair on fire and photographed her while it burned, a ball gag in her mouth. He’d cut out unemployed Gail Wrightman’s tongue. He’d murdered hairdresser Susan Meyer by stamping repeatedly on her head.)

“Never killed anyone by overdose, did you?” said Strike.

“It takes far more skill to disorientate them but keep them on their feet. Any fool can shove an overdose down someone’s throat. The other takes knowledge and experience. That’s how I know they’re using too much on me in here, because I understand side-effects.”

“What were you giving the women in the basement?”

“I never drugged a woman, once I had her at home. Once she was inside, I had other ways of keeping her quiet.”

Andrea Hooton’s mouth had been sewn shut by Creed while she was still alive: the traces of thread had still been present on the rotting head.

The psychiatrist glanced at his watch.

“What if a woman was already drunk?” asked Strike. “Gail Wrightman: you picked her up in a bar, right? Wasn’t there a danger of overdose, if you drugged her on top of the drink?”

“Intelligent question,” said Creed, drinking Strike in with his enormous pupils. “I can usually tell what a woman’s had to the exact unit. Gail was on her own, sulking. Some man had stood her up…”

Creed was giving nothing away: these weren’t secrets. He’d admitted to it all already, in the dock, where he’d enjoyed relaying the facts, watching the reaction of the victims’ relatives. The photographs hidden under the floorboards, of Gail and Andrea, Susan and Vera, Noreen, Jackie and Geraldine, bound, burned and stabbed, alive and maimed, their mutilated and sometimes headless corpses posed in pornographic attitudes, had damned him before he opened his mouth, but he’d insisted on a full trial, pleading guilty by reason of insanity.

“… in a wig, bit of lipstick… they think you’re harmless, odd… maybe queer. Talked to her for a minute or two, little dark corner. You act concerned…

“Bit of Nembutal in her drink… tiny amount, tiny,” said Creed, holding his trembling fingers millimeters apart. “Nembutal and alcohol, potentially dangerous, if you don’t know what you’re doing, but I did, obviously…

“So I say, ‘Well, I got to go now, sweetheart, you be careful.’ ‘Be careful!’ It always worked.” Creed affected squeaky tones to imitate Gail, “‘Aw, don’t go, have a drink!’ ‘No, darling, I need my beauty sleep.’ That’s when you prove you’re not a threat. You make as if you want to leave, or actually walk away. Then, when they call you back, or run into you ten minutes later, when they’re starting to feel like shit, they’re relieved, because you’re the nice man who’s safe…

“It was all in my book, the different ways I got them. Instructive for women who want to keep out of trouble, you’d think, to read how a highly efficient killer works, but the authorities won’t let it be published, which makes you question, are they happy for slags to be picked off on the streets? Maybe they are.

“Why’re there people like me at all, Cormoran? Why’s evolution let it happen? Because humans are so highly developed, we can only thin ourselves out with intraspecies predators. Pick off the weak, the morally depraved. It’s a good thing that degenerate, drunk women don’t breed. That’s just a fact, it’s a fact,” said Dennis Creed.

“I’d wind down my window. ‘Want a lift, love?’ Swaying all over the place. Glad to see me. Got in the van, no trouble, grateful to sit down…

“I used to say to Gail, once I had her in the basement: ‘Should’ve gone to the bathroom instead, you dirty little bitch, shouldn’t you? I bet you’re the type to piss in the street. Filthy, that is, filthy’… Why’re you so interested in drugging?”

The flow of talk had suddenly dried up. Creed’s blank gray and black eyes darted left and right between each of Strike’s.

“You think Dr. Bamborough would be too clever to get herself drugged by the likes of me, do you?”

“Doctors can make mistakes, like anyone else,” said Strike. “You met Noreen Sturrock on a bus, right?”

Creed considered Strike for several seconds, as though trying to work something out.

“Busses, now, is it? How often did Margot Bamborough take the bus?”

“Frequently, I’d imagine,” said Strike.

“Would she’ve taken a can of Coke from a stranger?”

“That’s what you offered Noreen, right? And the Coke was full of phenobarbital?”

“Yeah. She was almost asleep by the time we came to my stop. I said, ‘You’ve missed yours, darling. Come on, I’ll take you to a taxi rank.’ Walked her straight off the bus, arm round her. She wasn’t a big girl, Noreen. That was one of the easiest.”

“Did you adjust dosage for weight?”

There was another slight pause.

“Busses and cans of pop, and adjusting drugs for weight?… You know what, Cormoran? I think my second guess was right. You’re here for little Louise Tucker.”

“No,” said Strike with a sigh, settling back in his chair. “As it happens, you were spot on first time round. I was hired by Margot Bamborough’s daughter.”

There was a longer silence now, and the psychiatrist again checked his watch. Strike knew that his time was nearly up, and he thought Creed knew it, too.

“I want to go back to Belmarsh, Cormoran,” said Creed, leaning in now that Strike had leaned back. “I want to finish my book. I’m sane, you know it, too, you just said it. I’m not ill. It’s costing the taxpayer five times as much to keep me in here as it would in jail. Where would the British public say I should be, eh?”

“Oh, they’d want you back in prison,” said Strike.

“Well, I agree with them,” said Creed. “I agree.”

He looked sideways at Dr. Bijral, who had the look of a man about to call a halt.

“I’m sane and if I’m treated like it, I’ll act like it,” said Creed.

He leaned further forwards.

“I killed Louise Tucker,” said Creed in a soft voice, and in Strike’s peripheral vision the psychiatrist and the nurse both froze, astonished. “Picked her up off a street corner in my van, November 1972. Freezing cold that night. She wanted to go home and she had no money. I couldn’t resist, Cormoran,” said Creed, those big black pupils boring into Strike’s. “Little girl in her school uniform. No man could resist. Did it on impulse… no planning… no wig, no drugged Coke, nothing…”

“Why wasn’t there any trace of her in the basement?” said Strike.

“There was. I had her necklace. But I never had her in the basement, see? You want proof, I’ll give you proof: she called her stepmother ‘Claws.’ Tell Tucker she told me that, all right? Yeah, we had a five-minute chat about how pissed off she was at home, before she realized we were going the wrong way. Then she starts screaming and banging on the windows.

“I turned into a dark car park,” said Creed quietly, “put my hand over her mouth, dragged her into the back of the van, fucked her and throttled her. I’d’ve liked to keep her longer, but she was loud, too loud.

“Dumb thing to do, but I couldn’t resist, Cormoran. No planning—school uniform! But I had work next day, I needed the van empty. I wanted to take the body back to the basement, but old Vi Cooper was wide awake when I drove back up Liverpool Road. She was looking down at me out the top window when I drove past, so I didn’t stop. Told her later she’d imagined it was me. The old bitch used to sit up to see what time I came in. I usually drugged her if I was off on the prowl, but this was a spur-of-the-moment treat…”

“What did you do with the body?” said Strike.

“Ah,” said Creed, sitting back in his seat. The wet lips slid over each other, and the wide pupils gaped. “I think I’m going to need a transfer back to Belmarsh before I tell anyone that. You go and tell the newspapers I’ve decided to confess to killing Louise, and that I’m sane, and I should be in Belmarsh, and if I’m transferred, I’ll tell old Brian Tucker where I put his little girl. You go tell the authorities, that’s my offer…

“You never know, I might even feel up to talking about Margot Bamborough when I’m out of here. Let’s get these drugs out of my system, and maybe I’ll remember better.”

“You’re full of shit,” said Strike, getting to his feet, looking angry. “I’m not passing this on.”

“Don’t be like that, because it’s not the one you came for,” said Creed, with a slow smile. “You’re coming across like a proper narcissist, Cormoran.”

“I’m ready to go,” Strike told Dr. Bijral.

“Don’t be like that,” said Creed. “Oi!”