By the time the scene-of-crime vans arrived, the snow had stopped and there were several children skipping and playing in it beyond the perimeter that had been set up. Blue swirling lights lit up the entire street and almost all of the houses had their lights on, and Kate could spot the occasional curious face at the window in her periphery as she worked. It was understandable: it’s not every day that this many police officers turned up at the house next door.

Kate shuddered against the memory of what she’d just seen. What kind of monster was she dealing with?

‘Kate, Kate,’ Ben called from his car, as he looked for a space to leave his vehicle. With three SSD vans already abandoned in the road, space was at a premium.

Ducking beneath the cordon she approached the passenger side and climbed in. ‘I think there are some spaces further up the road,’ she said, pointing where she meant.

‘Is it as bad as they’re saying?’ he asked, switching off the stereo, so they could talk without interruption.

Kate felt the sting of tears at the corner of her eyes, and opted to nod, fearful he would pick up on the crack of emotion if she dared speak.

‘As bad as Friday?’

‘Worse.’

He spotted a space and drove straight into it, before killing the engine. Turning to face her, he gently brushed the fringe out of her eyes. ‘How are you holding up?’

She nodded.

‘I know you have to remain strong in front of your team, but you don’t need to do it in front of me. I know how brave you are, and it’s okay to admit that something like this has—’

She looked away to avoid the temptation to break down. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Were there any parts left up there?’

‘I-I-I didn’t stay long enough to notice. Maybe.’

Reaching out he placed his large warm hand over hers and squeezed it. ‘I’d better go and take a look. You know where I am if you want to talk.’

‘I need the blood processing as quickly as possible. I need to know if Daisy Emerson was… was one of the victims.’

‘I’ll work with SSD to compare the profiles.’

She manoeuvred her thumb so it could gently squeeze the back of his hand. ‘I’d better get back to the office and update the team. Our work’s only just beginning.’

---

Staring out at the city covered in a blanket of snow, it looked so picturesque; festive, almost. With the sun long since set, and the street lights reflecting off the tiny crystals of ice, it would make a warming holiday photograph, and it amazed Kate how a sprinkling of snow could help mask the evil lurking beneath the surface of her city.

‘You okay, ma’am?’ Patel asked, handing her a fresh mug of coffee, while the rest of the team began to gather in the incident room for the final catch-up before she sent them home to their families.

‘It was another bloodbath,’ she whispered. ‘I never thought I’d ever witness anything as gruesome as Friday night, but this… we have to catch whoever it is. Promise me we’ll catch him.’

‘With you running point, ma’am, he doesn’t have a chance of escape.’

She forced a thin smile to acknowledge the support, but smiling was the last thing she wanted to do.

Standing to address the team, she wasn’t even sure where to begin. ‘I’m guessing most of you have heard about the horror show at forty-eight Abbotts Way? If you haven’t, picture the crime scene photographs captured at the sports hall at St Bartholomew’s and you’ll have a pretty good guess of what I’ve just come from. Someone out there is hard at work dismembering bodies. This could be the worst case any of us will ever deal with in our careers.’

She paused and reached out for the printed image of Chris Jackson, sticking it to the board. ‘We know that Daisy Emerson was seen in the vicinity of forty-eight Abbotts Way the night she went missing, and SSD are rushing through testing the bloodwork at the scene to see if any is a match for Daisy. Until those results are in, we need to keep all of this in-house. The last thing I want is more leaks to the media adding to the speculation.’ She glanced at Quinlan. ‘We need to let SSD process the scene. But, while we’re waiting for that, our priority must be to find Chris Jackson, the self-employed photocopy engineer who we have on site at the school on Thursday and Friday, and who hasn’t been seen since the discovery was made in the sports hall. Laura, where are we with tracing his vehicle?’

‘Nothing back from the neighbouring counties. It’s as if he just up and vanished. Mobile phone is still off and there’s been no activity on his debit or credit cards.’

‘Thanks, Laura,’ Kate said. ‘Commit this face to memory, people. It is not in my nature to jump to conclusions, but when a person of interest in a murder investigation goes dark like this, it usually means he is planning to strike again. We know our killer dismembered Maria Alexandrou at St Bartholomew’s, and someone else at Abbotts Way. That second victim could be Petr Nowakowski, or it could be Daisy Emerson, or worse still, an as-yet-unidentified victim. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to have to do everything within our power to stop him. I want a patrol car at Jackson’s home in case he shows up there. Ewan, he has a Facebook page for his business, which must mean he probably has a private one too. Do your magic and find it. I want to know who his friends are, whether he’s married or dating, where he likes to go on holiday. Somewhere in there will be a clue as to where he’s currently hiding out.’

Freeborn nodded.

‘Vicky, check his phone activity for where he’s been prior to switching it off. If he’s been scoping out somewhere he can stay, maybe he’s been dumb enough to leave a trail we can follow.’

Rogers fixed Kate with a nervous look. ‘I was just called by the student who’d claimed to have seen Daisy at the bus stop in Portswood. He’s now retracted his statement, admitting he was nowhere near the area that night. Seems one of his housemates dared him to do it.’

‘So Georgie Barclay is confirmed as the last witness to see her.’

Rogers nodded.

‘CCTV, ma’am?’ Patel piped up.

‘Yes, of course. I know vehicle recognition can’t find him now, but let’s see where Jackson was the night Daisy went missing. Can we place him in the area of Portswood? What about near the homes of Maria Alexandrou and Petr Nowakowski in the days before their disappearances? The man Georgie Barclay described at number forty-eight did not match Chris Jackson, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an accomplice.’

‘I’ll take that, ma’am,’ Laura volunteered.

Kate nodded her thanks. ‘Humberidge, I want you to stop looking into Barry Emerson’s activities for that night, and focus on finding anything to tie Jackson to Daisy, Nowakowski and Maria, as well as anything that directly links our victims. Cover every possible scenario. We need to establish whether he’s hunting them, or whether they’ve been opportunistic crimes.’

For once Humberidge didn’t argue, and Kate was grateful for that.

‘It’s getting late, and they’re threatening more snow overnight. Work for as long as you feel you can and then get home and get your heads down for a few hours and get in as early as you can tomorrow.’

Kate dismissed them and turned back to face the picture of Chris Jackson, wondering just how long he’d been planning this spree.