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David?’
    ‘You’re not well; you look uncomfortable, not old.’
    ‘Old as the bloody hills my granny played on as a little girl.’
    ‘But not as old as me. Come back to bed?’
    ‘Just a little longer. I still feel like I might throw up. Any other news?’
    ‘Yeah, I’m revisiting a former childhood haunt in the morning. Kent . . .’
    ‘Kent? Why?’
    ‘Like beggars, desperate coppers can’t be choosers.’
    ‘Who are you going to see?’
    ‘A Catholic priest. Father Sebastian. He claims he has a specific insight into the killer’s motive.’
    ‘Isn’t that what the forensic psychologists get paid for?’
    ‘I guess.’
    He felt a deadness creeping into the backs of his thighs, from his hard perch on the edge of the bath.
    They were silent for more than a minute.
    ‘I think it’s settled down a bit. Let’s go back to bed. I’m growing sick of the sight of the toilet. If I feel the need to be sick, I’ll run.’
    He followed her, turned off the bathroom light, glanced into the darkness and turned the light back on to make the way back easier if it was needed. He drew the quilt over Sarah and tucked it in
around her shoulders and arms, making sure she was covered.
    ‘I saw Brantwood Road, on Sky News,’ said Sarah. ‘When I was downstairs on the sofa. I was channel-hopping when I could keep my eyes open.’
    ‘Oh, yes?’ he said breezily, but in his mind he was back in the old lady’s room, an open locket on the dresser, the faces of two children, a lock of hair; and a corpse,
unmissed and unmourned, in the bed just behind him.
    ‘I had a thought, about this Herod. It’s more specific. He hates his mother. He hates his mother with a vengeance but – turn the light out, David.’
    The room was full of textured darkness, corrugations of shadow. Sarah curled into Rosen.
    ‘I’ll pick you up from school tomorrow. Five-ish?’
    ‘Full governors’ meeting, I’m afraid,’ she replied.
    ‘Then I’ll see you at ten o’clock tomorrow night. I wish you hadn’t taken on that teacher-governor’s job.’ He backtracked to what she’d just said about
Herod. ‘He hates his mother. The forensic psychs said as much.’
    ‘But somewhere,’ said Sarah, ‘beneath the depths of hatred he has for the woman who gave birth to him, he hates himself much more. Yes, he’s murdering these poor women,
but what he’s doing with the babies is ritual self-destruction. He’s removing himself from the face of the earth.’
    ‘If he’s removing himself from the face of the earth, then what’s the reverse side of the action?’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was sleepy.
    ‘What’s he replacing himself with?’
    ‘Maybe that’s the scariest thing. Something inhuman.’
    ‘Mind if I pass that off as my idea at the next team briefing?’
    ‘Haven’t the forensic psychologists said as much?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No?’
    Within moments, her breathing changed and she was on the descent into sleep. Rosen, his body aching and tired, his mind wide awake, craved sleep but grew accustomed to the darkness, wondering
what Herod was aspiring to and hoping that somehow the morning would bring a better day.

11
    T he memory of all those childhood autumns spent on that flat land brought with it a sense of shame and anger. Before the Kent farms all became
fully mechanized, the work of picking hops was light and well paid. His mum had sold it to him and his brothers and sisters as an annual holiday, but as Rosen grew older, it had to become another
thing to resent.
    The work was monotonous, the stuff of dead ends, not of dreams. And, each year, he was thrust into the company of the same migrant families, a protracted reminder of the hand-to-mouth world he
longed to escape.
    Aged thirteen, he knew for a fact that football and music were never going to be his way out. Hard, meaningful work with a solid education were the key to a better life. But, each year, in
September and October, he missed the first half-term