'Right. Right, okay.' He didn't know what else to say. She was in the land of normal families; he was floundering in the sick world of homicide. He wasn't able for her light heartedness after the events of the past couple of days. They were just on different wavelengths his sombre, dark and hollow, unable to mix with her light. 'I'll see you later, okay?' he finished lamely.

'Okay. Try and catch him today so you can be home for my birthday tomorrow. Though it doesn't matter if you can't, catching him is more important.'

'I'll do my best, pumpkin,' McEvoy promised. 'I love you, okay?'

'I love you too. Look after yourself.' She ended the call.

He stared at the phone for a second, wanting to be at home, away from all the madness around him. His mind drifted to Maggie. Her smiling on a beach in Clew Bay, her hair windswept across her face; she was six months pregnant and in love with the world. Then fast forward to six months ago, a forced smile through the pain and drugs, her skin grey, her hair matted and greasy from cold sweats. He wished he could bring her back somehow, make her more than just a memory. He looked up at the trees and back down at the phone and checked the time. He started to walk back toward the zoo and garda headquarters.

The woman was staring at the wall, her back to her partner. Her mind was a tangle of confusion; of suspicions and questions half-formed and desperate to be asked. Without turning she eventually found the courage to speak.

'You knew the first two people,' she half-whispered, half-spoke.

'What?' he muttered, backing into her, suddenly becoming alive inside, attuned to her coldness.

'You knew that young girl that died and you knew David Hennessey.'

'We both knew David,' he said neutrally, fighting to suppress his rising anger. 'And I don't know what you're trying to suggest, but I never knew the girl.'

'Laura,' the woman said. 'Her name was Laura. I saw you with her once. You were talking to her near to the hospital.'

'I think you must have her or me confused with someone else,' he said calmly, keeping his inner rage from his voice, rolling over onto his back. 'I've never met her. You think I'm The Raven?' he asked incredulously.

'I don't know what I think,' she said quietly.

'You really think I could have killed those people in cold blood,' he said, unable to keep his voice neutral. 'I mean, why would I? How could I?' He placed a hand on her hip. 'I don't know where you've got this crazy idea from, but I'm not The Raven. I don't know who is, but it isn't me.'

She stayed silent regretting having said anything. If her suspicions were right she was potentially lying next to a serial killer; a deranged lunatic who thought he could kill with impunity. She was fairly confident that he knew the first two victims. She'd barely seen him in the past few days, and he'd arrived at her apartment at gone one o'clock last night, ever so slightly hyper. Through the thin cotton of her nightdress she could feel him bristle with irritation at her silence.

After a few moments she swung her bare legs out of the bed, his hand sliding onto the sheets, and headed for the bathroom. The main thing was to get away from him, find somewhere to think things through, get her thoughts into some kind of order; somewhere where she didn't feel under threat. She'd get ready for work as normal; tell him that she was sorry, that she was just being paranoid. She pushed the bathroom door shut and stared at her tired face in the mirror before bending to scoop up handfuls of lukewarm water, splashing them on her face trying to calm her inner panic.

He waited until the door closed and then followed, carefully rolling his feet to keep silent. He shut his eyes, gathering himself, trying to centre his anger, sucked air in through his nose and burst through the door.

She was bent over the sink. In one motion he grabbed hold of her hair, yanked up her head and violently shoved her face into the mirror. His anger crimsoned his vision, threatening to blossom into blind rage. He tugged her head back and slammed it forward again, the mirror cracking in a jagged pattern of concentric circles centred on the point of impact. He felt her go limp in his grasp and he managed to rein in his fury, letting her slide unconscious to the floor, blood tricking from her nostrils. Her once beautiful face a bloody mess.

He left her there and headed to the kitchen, now feeling strangely calm, his anger dissipating as quickly as it flamed. He retrieved some packing tape from a drawer and returned to the bathroom. He slipped the cotton nightdress over her head and levered her dead weight into the bath. Using the tape he bound her wrists to the handles of the bath and her feet to the taps. He then placed the tape across her mouth and wrapped it round her bloody head several times leaving her nose free.

Trust her to see through him. He'd accounted for everything except her. He didn't think he'd need to. He'd been confident that he'd left no clues to his alter-ego and his project. She would now inevitably have to die and with her disappearance he would ultimately be exposed. But that was okay; he'd just need to re-think his exit strategy. He wouldn't be able to blend back in to society; instead he'd need to disappear into the shadows. He'd planned for such a possibility; after all he was writing the rules not following them. He was even leaving a trail of clues that would lead right to him if the guards had enough brains to follow them; or perhaps they would follow his false trails instead.

He sat on the closed toilet seat and traced a finger over her alabaster skin, a red trace of pressure left in its wake. This would be a death he could savour.

Tony Bishop stared out the window and across the park. He was trying to convince himself that he was calm and collected, in control of things; that the butterflies in his stomach and the jitteriness in his blood were not real; that he could handle the bombardment of questions from the world's media. And it was going to be global coverage. Three murders by a self-proclaimed serial killer in three days, with the promise of more until his sick, little book was written. The table behind him was covered with the day's newspapers. The murders were on the front page of every one. There was little hope of keeping the cards and chapters under wraps now. One of the foreign papers would publish them and then they'd be all over the Internet.

He sucked in air slowly and let it out gently. He was dressed in a pristine uniform and subconsciously he played with the cuffs.

There was a knock at the door and he could hear it opening. He swung round, his manner turning immediately to one of irritation, his nervousness surfacing and escaping. 'For God's sake, Colm! Look at the state of you!' He gestured angrily, a flood of red rising from his collar into his face. 'What the hell are you playing at?'

McEvoy stared back impassively, then down at his attire, and back up again. His shoes were covered in blades of grass, the lower part of his suit trousers wet and dirty, his shirt and loosely knotted tie stained by coffee. He caught his reflection in the window, his face pale, skin tight to the bones and dark with stubble, crescents under his eyes.

'You look like shit and you're dressed like a scarecrow!' Bishop berated him. 'We have a press conference in an hour and you look a hurricane survivor.'

'I've come straight from the murder site,' McEvoy said as way of explanation.

'You spent the whole night there?' Bishop asked, incredulity in his tone. 'Why the hell did you do that? It's called delegating, Colm. You're a manager for God's sake. You should have handed it over to Jenny Flanagan when she arrived and gone home and tried to get some sleep. Jesus! How the hell are you going to catch him if you can't think straight because you're knackered?'

McEvoy stayed silent.

'No wonder you look like shit,' Bishop stated. 'When was the last time you slept? Properly slept,' Bishop qualified.

McEvoy shrugged. 'A while ago, I guess.'

'Well, you haven't got time to go home to clean up now. You've probably only got a wardrobe of those ridiculous suits in any case. We'll just have to try and find someone who's the same size as you. Preferably someone wearing a uniform. It doesn't matter what the rank is as long as it fits. I'll get someone else to go and get you a razor and some deodorant from a local shop. I'll be back in a minute. Don't go anywhere. You understand?'

He brushed past McEvoy and out of the door. It clicked shut behind him.

McEvoy drew out a chair and sat at the table. He looked down at the papers on the table and then stared up at a Yeats print. He didn't need to read the papers, their half-truths, conjecture and psychobabble analysis. He knew the reality of what was happening; he was living it. It was bearing down and crushing him.

His phone rang and he pulled it reluctantly from his pocket. 'McEvoy.'

'It's Diarmaid Savage. We've found all the toes and notes,' he said excitedly. 'If you plot them ...'

'What do they say?' McEvoy interrupted.

'Well, they ... er,' Savage was thrown off balance. 'Look, it's, er, not so much what they say, as what they show, if you know what I mean. I mean, if you plot the location of each toe and note and draw a line between them in the order that they were left, then they draw the picture of a bird the beak, the wings, and the tail. He's drawn a picture of a bird a raven across the park.'

'A raven,' McEvoy repeated, trying to make sense of Savage's news.

'And where the murder occurred forms the eye,' Savage said.

McEvoy stayed silent trying to digest the information. 'You'd better tell me what the notes say,' he muttered eventually.

Savage read them out.

3f. Do not draw attention to yourself. Act like an ordinary member of the public. 53,21,10.43, 06,20,13.78 3g. Never become complacent.

'He's underlined, never,' Savage explained before continuing.

53,21,34.31, 6,20,54.18.

3h. Do not create patterns vary timing, method of killing, method of disposal, and so on.

53,21,28.02, 06,19,39.53.

'Plus the master rule.'

'He's got it all worked out, hasn't he,' McEvoy said quietly. 'The cocky bastard. You'd better let Jenny Flanagan know. I've got to go.'

He ended the call, wanting to process the information, to sit in silence. He stared up at the ceiling. The press were going to have a field day with the killer's sky writing of his supposed emblem. The Raven was feeding the machine, developing a recognisable persona that would ensure he would be remembered well after he was caught and jailed. He lowered his eyes back to the Yeats print.

McEvoy slipped off his shoes and started to strip off his clothes, hanging them on a clothes hook. The borrowed uniform hung two hooks along the rack. His mobile phone rang and he dug a hand into his trouser pocket to retrieve it.

'McEvoy.'

'Colm, it's Elaine. Do you have a minute?'

'Sure, but it'll have to be quick. I've got to have a shower and a shave. This press conference is in 20 minutes' time.'

'She was killed by asphyxiation caused by strangulation. He used his hands rather than a tie or rope, gouged his fingers deep into her throat. She had some deep spots of haemorrhaging under the skin, damage to her larynx and thyroid cartilage, and her hyoid bone had been fractured. Interestingly, she has a horizontal stripe of abrasions and bruising high across her chest. Up near her collarbones.'

'A stripe?' McEvoy repeated.

'I'd say she'd been caught across the chest by a rope or wire. If I was to guess what happened, I'd say she was running along the path when she ran into a wire that whipped her legs from under her bringing her to the ground. Our killer then bashed her in the face to stun her and then strangled her. The blow to the face broke her nose and fractured her right cheekbone, but just stunned her. He hit her with something long and wide in shape the blow fell across her face, rather than being concentrated into one point. The toes were cut off after death, which I can confirm as being around nine o'clock give or take half an hour. They'd been cut off with something sharp, but not serrated. Probably shears or pliers, bolt-cutters or something similar. She was also pregnant. I'd say she was about eight weeks' gone.'

'She was pregnant?' McEvoy repeated, sitting down on the wooden slatted bench in his underpants and socks.

'Just a few weeks,' Elaine replied.

'None of the people who've been talking to the husband told me that.' McEvoy stared at the changing room's tiled floor. Now they were investigating four deaths three lives and one future one.

'The husband might not have known. She might have been saving it, waiting until she was a bit further into the pregnancy when there was less likelihood of miscarriage before telling him.'

'Jesus,' McEvoy muttered.

'Look, have your shower and do the press conference. If you've got any other questions come back to me, otherwise it'll be in the report. And get some sleep.' She ended the call.

McEvoy pulled each sock off, stood, pulled down his underwear and crossed the room to the showers. It was going to take more than water and soap to make him feel clean.

The uniform was a better fit than his suit, but it was still a size too big. McEvoy felt uncomfortable wearing someone else's clothes, inhabiting their space, his hands straying into foreign pockets. He jammed a finger between his collar and neck trying to make space, though there was plenty of room.

He was sat on a small stage, sitting behind a cloth-covered table. Multiple microphones crowded the surface, their necks ringed with network logos. Off to his left was a small podium, which Bishop moved to and cleared his throat.

'Please, ladies and gentlemen, if we could make a start.' Bishop waited for the room to descend to a hush. He then started to read out a prepared statement. 'It's my unfortunate duty to inform you that Grainne Malone was murdered yesterday evening whilst running in the Phoenix Park. She was attacked and then strangled some time around nine o'clock. From items that were left at the scene we believe that she was killed by the same person who murdered Laura Schmidt and David Hennessey. We are appealing for witnesses who were in the Phoenix Park last night to come forward to help us with our enquiries. We are also still seeking to speak to anyone who was in the grounds of Maynooth University on the night of Monday the 14th, and visited Glencree Peace and Reconciliation Centre on the night of Sunday 13th of April.

'All available resources are being directed at catching the killer of Laura Schmidt, David Hennessey and Grainne Malone. It is clear, however, that we are seeking a very dangerous individual who is preying on people who are alone and vulnerable in public places. We are therefore advising all members of the public to be extra vigilant in the coming days and not to move about at night unaccompanied unless absolutely necessary. Until caught, there is every likelihood that the killer will try to strike again. If anyone sees anybody acting suspiciously or in a threatening manner under no circumstances should they approach or try to apprehend them, instead ring the gardai immediately. Any help the public can provide that will help us apprehend the killer will be gratefully received.' Bishop paused and pulled a tight smile.

The room was suddenly filled with a barrage of questions.

'Please. Please, ladies and gentlemen, one at a time. Yes, you, wearing the purple.' Bishop pointed at a dark haired woman wearing a purple blouse over a black skirt.

'The killer left business cards and chapters for his book at the scene of the last two murders. Can you confirm that he left the cards and a chapter with the body of Grainne Malone? And if so, what did the note say?'

Bishop scrunched his face, deciding how to answer the question. 'We can confirm that they were both present. However, at this time we do not want to reveal their contents as they are critical to the enquiry. If these items have been sent to the media then we would appeal strongly to you not to publish the material. We do not want any copycat murders or hoaxes that might make catching the ...' Bishop paused, not wanting to say 'The Raven', 'murderer more difficult. We want the knowledge of the notes to be limited to the gardai and the killer. I know this is a difficult request to make, especially as they add meat to your stories, but I cannot express strongly enough the need to keep this material out of the public domain until he is caught.'

The air filled with questions as Bishop ended.

'Please. Please, ladies and gentlemen, one at a time. Yes, madam, fourth row back with the red scarf.'

'Hi, yes,' the woman said with an American accent. 'Ireland's not noted for its serial killers. In fact I'm not sure you've had to deal with one outside of maybe gang or paramilitary in-fighting, and I'm not sure they really fit the mode of what we might call a serial killer, more like hired assassins. Do you think you have the expertise and the resources to deal with catching a serial killer of this type? I notice for example that you don't employ a criminal psychologist or something similar.'

McEvoy shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced over at Bishop.

Bishop's face had flushed a deep red, his body language becoming defensive. 'We have a highly skilled police force with many specialist officers. They have many years' experience of solving murders and other serious crimes and we are confident that they are doing the best job possible. If we need to bring in other specialists, whether that be criminal psychologists or forensic anthropologists we do that. We are not shy about asking for help from experts in Ireland or from elsewhere Europe or North America. We are a small country of just over four million people with a low murder rate, nearly all of which is domestic or gang-related in nature. We do not have the need for such full-time staff. Yes, they would be useful now, but we would no doubt be criticised by the media for wasting resources on un-needed personnel any other time.'

'Does that mean you'll be hiring in such staff?' a red haired man asked, quickly.

'I'm not sure we have such plans at the moment. Colm, perhaps you can answer that?'

McEvoy looked up from the doodle he was pencilling on the pad in front of him, startled by the use of his name.

'I, er, it's a possibility,' he conceded, his mind foggy with tiredness. 'Forensic evidence would, however, I think, be more useful. Rather than a set of possibilities, we'd be looking for a specific individual. He has killed one person a day for the past three days. The balance of probabilities says he will kill again today. A profile is not going to stop that. Specifics, not generalities, will stop that. We are working on establishing the specifics that will identify the killer.'

'So how confident are you that you'll catch him before he's finished all his chapters?' an overweight, bald-headed man asked sceptically.

'We're doing our best. We have hundreds of gardai working on the case.' It was not the answer the man was looking for, but it was the best McEvoy felt he could offer. There was no point lying; if he said that they would catch him and they didn't, then they would never hear the end of it. It would be used to whip the gardai for years to come. That said, if they didn't catch him, they'd suffer the same fate. They were damned either way.

'That's not very reassuring,' the man replied predictably. 'What the public wants to hear is a "yes".'

'There's no point making promises that we do not know we can keep,' McEvoy said, shrugging his shoulders. 'We are doing our best to catch him. We can only do our best. Until we catch him, we're asking people to be extra vigilant.'

'The woman at the back wearing the blue blouse,' Bishop said, trying to re-grab the initiative, hoping that she was going to ask about something else.

McEvoy eased on the jacket of his stained and creased suit. The press conference had lasted another five minutes until Bishop had brought it to a close. The questioning had become demanding, more critical, loaded with expectations that were unrealistic and undeliverable. It was becoming clear that however the case unfolded they would receive bad press. If they caught the killer in the next few hours, the question would be why they hadn't caught him earlier; that they had allowed three deaths to occur. If they didn't catch him until all the chapters were released there would be questions about resourcing, effort and strategy. He could already feel Bishop starting to distance himself from the case, making sure that people knew that it was McEvoy in charge of the investigation.

'Go home, Colm,' Bishop said, breaking the silence. 'Go home and get some rest. The others can cope for a few hours.'

'We need another team meeting. I need to catch up on Laura Schmidt and David Hennessey's murders.'

'That wasn't a suggestion, Colm. That was an order. The team meetings can wait. Give the teams their heads for a while.'

McEvoy nodded reluctantly.

'Ring your DIs and tell them not to bother you for a while,' Bishop paused. 'He's making fools of us, Colm. He's playing the press against us. There's no way we're going to be able to keep the lid on the cards and notes. They're going to be everywhere by this afternoon now the international media are covering things. They won't give a shit about our case; they're just interested in the story. Then it'll be the public and the politicians. You wait and see. They'll want their pound of flesh as well.'

McEvoy pulled a tight smile, but kept silent, letting Bishop have his rant.

'Go home, Colm, and pray the sick bastard makes a mistake.' Bishop pulled open the meeting room door and exited, leaving McEvoy with the prints and the view of the Phoenix Park.

Simon Grainger walked across the incident room to where Charlie Deegan was standing staring at a newspaper.

'Sir?'

'Have you seen this?' Deegan asked, stabbing his finger at the sheets. 'They've spelt my fuckin' name wrong. They're missing an e.'

'Dermot Brady was one of Hennessey's students,' Grainger said, ignoring Deegan's bluster. 'Hennessey gave a character reference at Brady's trial.'

'What?' Deegan said, turning, having only half-heard Grainger.

'I said, Hennessey gave a character reference for Dermot Brady at his trial.'