The townspeople of Ragmullin were wide awake and wary. News of another murder had filtered through the gossip lines. They were saying a priest was dead. Lottie frowned. The grapevine was proving very fruitful, even in the depths of winter.

Snowy icicles hanging from drainpipes dripped slowly as temperatures struggled to rise. A murky grey fog enveloped the morning. Lottie looked away from the incident room window. Extensive searches had failed to uncover the whereabouts of a phone or laptop belonging to Susan Sullivan.

‘She could have used an internet cafe,’ Boyd suggested.

‘She could have been on Mars for all we know,’ Lottie snapped.

She felt bloated, having scoffed a McDonald’s breakfast on her way into work. Junk food. She binged when the urge for alcohol threatened to become something more than a desire. The investigations would drive a saint to drink altar wine. Lottie knew she was no saint but she’d endured the night without alcohol or indeed much sleep.

The technical team had searched the relevant Facebook pages and found nothing. It was like driving around a strange city without GPS or any knowledge of the local language. They were lost.

Glancing out the window again, she noticed around a dozen heavily jacketed journalists, armed with cameras and notebooks, assembled in huddles below. She turned to the sparse incident board. She felt like the murderer was an invisible man or woman. But he was out there. She turned to Boyd.

‘We have to join the dots soon, and when we do the picture is going to get complicated very quickly.’

‘It’s complicated enough,’ he said.

‘We’re due a break, otherwise the two of us will be working cold cases for the rest of our lives. And this one will be the coldest of all.’

‘Sometimes you speak in the riddles of Egyptian gods,’ Boyd said.

‘Egyptian gods?’ Lottie studied the prints on the incident board.

‘Like hieroglyphics. You know, language of symbols,’ he offered by way of explanation.

Lottie sighed. At this stage, she’d settle for any sign pointing them in the right direction. Something to fill the glaring, empty spaces. She studied the photocopies of the tattoos on Susan Sullivan and James Brown.

‘I wonder if these could be ancient symbols.’ She compared both the Brown and Sullivan tattoos.

‘They’re crosses in circles,’ Boyd said.

‘No, they’re not crosses,’ she said. ‘Perhaps they’re linked to a ritual or a sect. I wonder if victim number three, who is really victim number one, also has one?’

She dialled Jane Dore’s private line. The pathologist answered immediately.

‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that our latest victim also had the tattoo?’ Lottie asked.

‘I did a thorough visual and haven’t come across one,’ Jane Dore said in her no-nonsense voice. ‘I’m commencing the autopsy soon. I’ll send on my preliminary report when I’m done.’

‘Any word on the DNA analysis?’ Lottie asked. ‘I need to confirm it is actually Father Angelotti.’

‘I told you it could be weeks for DNA comparisons. Don’t pin your hopes on it. Get someone to ID the body.’

Another dead end. She hoped it was him otherwise she’d be in deep shit after telling the bishop it was his missing priest.

She looked at the tattoo again. Maybe Father Joe could make sense of it. Unorthodox behaviour to be eliciting help from a potential suspect, but what the heck. Just digging herself in a little deeper.

She punched the bell a second time. Eventually the crooked little nun answered the door.

‘I’d like to speak to Father Joe, please,’ Lottie said, finding herself bending to the nun’s level.

‘I’m not deaf you know,’ the nun said. ‘And he is called Father Burke.’

Lottie imagined the old nun in her prime, beating the life out of terrified youngsters in a classroom.

The nun kept the door closed over.

‘Sorry, I should say Father Burke.’ Lottie added, ‘Is he here?’

‘Not any more,’ the veiled woman said, closing the door.

Lottie put her booted foot in the gap, hoping she wouldn’t get crushed bones.

‘What do you mean by any more? I spoke with him yesterday.’

‘He’s not here. He’s gone,’ the nun said with cold authority.

‘Is there someone I can speak to about why he has left?’ Lottie asked, dread inching up her chest. Father Joe was one of their people of interest, though she herself didn’t believe he had done anything wrong.

‘I can’t help you. You’ll have to speak to Bishop Connor.’

Lottie jumped back as the wooden slab of a door smashed against the jamb and a bolt slid into a lock. She stepped into the bitter wind and headed down the path, away from the wizened old woman.

Boyd will have a field day with this, she thought. Done a runner, that’s what he’ll say. Instinctively Lottie knew there was more to this. She tried Father Joe’s mobile. Switched off. She desperately had to find him.

Blowing warm air on to her cold hands, she craved a cigarette and thought of Katie smoking weed. She needed to do something constructive. Like sorting out her daughter.