Beth dumped the heap of reports onto her desk. The summons from O’Dowd had been for assistance with interviewing several people the DI had hauled in because of the various beefs they’d had with either Fiona McGhie or Rachel Allen.

While Carleton Hall may be the official HQ for the Cumbria Constabulary, it had neither cells nor interview suites, so any interviews the team conducted had to be done at Penrith’s station.

None of the men and women she’d interviewed with O’Dowd had presented themselves as anything other than innocent. What had been interesting though, were the extra details she’d picked up about each of the victims’ lives.

Fiona McGhie may have been a talented artist, but she was an acerbic woman whose tongue was famed for its sharpness. The arguments she’d had had all been minor ones that had been escalated by the viciousness of her response about trivial matters.

From everything Beth had heard about her, it was little wonder the artist had cloistered herself away. She had no friends outside the art world and even then, the people she associated with described themselves as acquaintances rather than friends. They spoke of her talent with a brush, not her likeability as a person.

Rachel Allen, on the other hand, was gregarious and outgoing. She had a wide circle of friends and only a few people had anything negative to say about her. A co-worker had described her as a tease. He’d shared a kiss with her after a leaving party, but she’d not let things progress and had blanked him the next day.

Rachel’s friends had told of similar experiences with other suitors. By all accounts, Rachel had often dressed to impress – one of her friends went so far as to use the term ‘fuck-me dresses’ – but had rarely hooked up with any of the men she attracted.

As Beth and O’Dowd had dug deeper into Rachel’s life, they sketched a picture of a confident young woman who always loved to be the centre of attention. On more than one occasion, Rachel had fallen out with a particular girlfriend over her flirting with the girl’s boyfriend. Rumours had circulated that she’d slept with the guy, but both Rachel and the man in question had apparently denied anything had happened.

One of Rachel’s ex-boyfriends had described her as a wannabe princess who’d expected him to wait on her like a slave. He’d broken up with her when she’d refused to do anything for herself other than buy clothes and beauty treatments.

Neither Beth nor O’Dowd had picked up any signs from anyone they’d spoken to that they had a serious grudge against Rachel, or that they’d kill her let alone embark on a killing spree. Even the girl whose boyfriend had allegedly slept with Rachel had admitted she’d used the flirting as an excuse to dump the guy, rather than having any real belief he’d cheated on her.

With so many possibilities exhausted, there was nothing to do but keep going over all the statements until she found the elusive connection between the victims.

Beth checked her emails and found another update from the Digital Forensics Unit, plus an email from the Merseyside police.

Caitlin’s life was laid bare for her. The girl had been in and out of trouble since she left primary school. Her family were well known to the police as small-time drug dealers who also dabbled in stolen goods and whatever else they could lay their hands on. Two of her brothers were currently residing at Her Majesty’s pleasure, as were an uncle and a cousin.

According to her parents, she’d left the house on Wednesday after a row with her mother and had gone to stay with her boyfriend. The notes on the boyfriend’s family showed them to be almost as troublesome as Caitlin’s.

Like Suzy Keane, Caitlin’s family had swiftly moved on from grief to anger. They’d threatened to complain to every paper in the land should their precious daughter’s killer not be caught. Her father had even requested that the Merseyside police turn the killer over to him so he could deliver a biblical revenge.

It was a normal response to sudden violent death. Beth knew that despite any family tensions or petty squabbles, the Russells would miss and mourn Caitlin. Grief was a raw and visceral thing, and the first instinct was always to lash out, to try and achieve the transference of pain.

Caitlin’s boyfriend was the obvious next step in her investigation. The Merseyside police had done their bit and had gone round to his house, but he’d left with Caitlin an hour after she’d arrived. His mother had said they were going to the Lakes, but she didn’t know why, or had deigned not to say, as she perhaps had felt that the truth would be incriminating.

Whatever the reason, they had to find her boyfriend. Beth felt it was unlikely he was mixed up in Caitlin’s death, but he still needed to be interviewed as he would have been the last person to see her.

A worse thought entered Beth’s mind. Maybe he too had been killed. His body displayed with a pair of wings emerging from his back after the killer had snatched the couple in a weird two-for-one deal.

As she read on, she was pleased to note that a trace had been issued for both his mobile phone and his number plate – finding him shouldn’t be too hard.

She moved on to the second email.

The various social media profiles of each of the known victims were telling if not informative.

Angus Keane had used Facebook as a place to advertise his business. He had a page where he uploaded photos of completed work and his header picture was little more than a billboard for his building work. He didn’t engage with anyone other than those who messaged his page or commented on the pictures of the completed projects that he posted.

Beth remembered her training and tried to get a measure of the man from his posts. The spelling and grammar were good; even the timings of his posts suggested a consideration for others. He’d go online once a day between eight and nine at night and post his messages. Beth could imagine him reading his girls their bedtime stories, tucking them in and then heading downstairs to do what needed to be done online before settling down to watch some TV with his wife.

Nick Langley had used Facebook to discuss football, politics and generally complain about the state of the country. His posts were full of misspellings and littered with mild xenophobia, but other than references to Carlisle United or generic local places like the cinema, there were no obvious connections with any of the other three Cumbrian victims.

Rachel Allen’s social media was what Beth expected from a single twenty-something. She was on Facebook and Instagram. Her Instagram posts were connected to her Facebook account and there were countless selfies of her in her mirror at home and on nights out. Looking through the pictures, Beth could understand the friend’s comment about Rachel’s dress sense. Almost every picture of Rachel showed her in clothes that accentuated her figure or downright flaunted it. Each one was a prime example of a person screaming, ‘hey, look at me’.

Beth knew one or two people who dressed the way Rachel did. Behind all the front and the noise, they were insecure and she pitied them for thinking they had to dress provocatively just to get attention. There was nothing wrong with wearing an outfit that made you look and feel good, but for Beth, there had to be a balance. If the pictures of Rachel were anything to go by, she’d never heard the old rule about showing either legs or cleavage, but never both.

Facebook comments and emojis to friends’ posts, check-ins at every place she’d been, and countless tags in the pictures of others – her profile was typical of her age group: whinges about work; excitement for forthcoming events and a plethora of shared memes.

As with many people her age, Rachel hadn’t yet settled on a particular career path. She was listed as having one job after another, the longest lasting just over a year. She worked as a secretary or admin assistant and had been employed at a variety of different locations around Cumbria.

Beth supposed she had been trying out various things until she found a job she loved. When that had failed, she’d decided to go travelling.

Fiona McGhie’s Facebook was little more than an advertising hoarding, in the same way Angus Keane had used his account. It listed nothing bar her latest works and provided links to various blog posts. Her Twitter account told a different story. It was here that she expressed her opinions on all manner of topics in caustic 280-character soundbites. No target was immune from her scorn, although Beth noticed she had the good sense not to criticise her customers.

When Beth checked out the blog attached to Fiona’s website, she found a collection of posts which commented on the issues facing independent artists mixed in with posts on Fiona’s inspirations and some of the artistic techniques that she used.

While the blog might have been of interest to some of her customers and fellow artists, Beth found it had an undercurrent of unspoken rage. The post on her blog about the supplier who’d failed to deliver on time had been a vitriol-fuelled hatchet job that bordered on the libellous.

Beth finished her reading and pushed her chair back so she could stand and stretch her limbs. After everything she’d learned about the minutiae of the victims’ lives, she now felt closer to them, understood them more.