The lad sitting across the table from Beth and Thompson was cocksure. Even without having read his record, Beth would have been able to tell he’d seen the inside of an interview room before.

Thompson went through the routine of naming everyone present and stating the reason for the interview.

Billy Sullivan was nineteen years old and still had a rash of acne. Everything about him spoke of an unshakeable self-confidence. The tilt of his head, the set of his jaw and the challenge in his eyes showed he was more than comfortable. He wouldn’t be easy to get talking; it would take all their cunning to get the truth from him.

Rather than go straight in with news of Caitlin’s death, Thompson had suggested they ease into the interview, as he wanted to get Billy used to talking to them before he brought up the subject of murder.

Beth knew that if Billy clammed up from the off, it would be a red flag, but if he went along with their questions and didn’t try to be clever or obstructive, depending on his answers they’d be able to eliminate him from their enquiries or charge him for Caitlin’s murder.

Thompson opened the questioning. ‘Do you know why you’re here, Billy?’

‘Something to do with Caitlin. The mad bitch, like totally flipped. I was like, what the fuck, at the way she went off on one.’

‘She flipped, did she? Why was that?’

‘She found a text she shouldn’t have.’ Billy gave a man-of-the-world shrug. ‘Man, I’m too young to, like, get tied down to some madwoman. Gonna play me the field and hope for a crop failure.’ Billy gave a forced laugh and twisted his head to see who was laughing with him.

His laugh halted when he was met with three stony faces. The duty solicitor made sure he could see her rolling eyes.

‘So what happened when she flipped out?’

‘The mad cow launched my phone out the car window. When I stopped to get it back she got out the car and, like, stormed off. My phone was in, like, a thousand pieces, so I let her go. Plenty more where she came from.’

‘You’re from Liverpool, aren’t you? Why were you in the Lakes?’

For the first time, Beth detected a touch of fear in Billy.

‘We just come away for a couple of nights. You know, dirty weekend in the week?’

‘Try again, Billy.’ Beth could detect the deliberate cynicism in Thompson’s voice. ‘We’ve seen your record, and Caitlin’s. We don’t for one minute think you were in the Lakes on holiday. You were up to something. I’ll be honest, I don’t know what it was and I don’t really care. I have more important things to worry about and, right now, I’m trying to find out who murdered Caitlin and left her with a pair of wings sprouting from her back.’

‘She’s dead? Shit, that’s sooo not cool.’ A hand with dirty fingernails swept across his face. ‘How did she die and what’s that shit about wings?’

‘She had a pair of wings surgically attached to her back, and she died after someone poured a flammable substance down her throat and then lit it.’

The room fell silent as Billy processed the news of Caitlin’s murder. Billy looked shocked and his trembling fingers and tear-filled eyes destroyed any illusion of his toughness.

Beth was the one who broke the silence. ‘What are you thinking, Billy? If I was to guess, I’d say you’re wondering why Caitlin was killed, why we’re speaking to you and whether we think you killed her.’

‘You ain’t no fool, lady. But before you start asking questions, I didn’t kill her. Way she was freaking out, I was glad the bitch pissed off when I stopped the car. Didn’t want her dead, just away from me, and she went away. Job was a good’un s’far as I was concerned.’

‘Where did this happen?’

‘Some place in the sticks. Was going from Kendal to Windermere, like. She wanted me to take the back roads so she could see more animals. She loved seeing sheep and cows.’ A shake of the head indicated Billy’s incomprehension at someone wanting to see animals. ‘I only want to see them on my plate.’

Beth tapped on the table’s Formica top before she spoke. ‘Seriously, Billy. We need to know where you last saw her. If you can’t be more specific, then we’ll start thinking you’re being deliberately vague because you’re lying to us. When we think people are lying to us, we wonder why. In your case it doesn’t take a lot of wondering to get from an argument where she dumped you and smashed your mobile, to you being so mad with her that you killed her, and made it look like she was murdered by the person who’s been killing other people the same way.’

‘What other people?’

Beth realised that Billy was probably the type of person who’d only watch the news to see if his own crimes had been reported. He hadn’t heard of the Dragon Master’s killings, and if her impression of him was anything to go by, he sure as hell wasn’t smart enough to be the Dragon Master himself.

Thompson’s hand slapped down on the table making them all jump. ‘Cut the nonsense, Billy, we know what you’re at. DC Young has it right. You’re a copycat; you killed her and copied details of the other killings in the way she was left, didn’t you?’

‘I didn’t copycat nothing. Caitlin dumped me and fucked off. End of. If you’re dumb enough to think I’d risk jail for that bitch, you ain’t got no hope of catching no killer.’

Beth and Thompson probed at Billy for another half hour before admitting defeat and releasing him.

Billy Sullivan didn’t possess the intellect to have committed the murders. He was small-time and always would be. His braggart nature and failure to understand anything beyond his own desires would prevent any organised criminals hiring him.

He’d seemed like a good lead but his story had panned out. They hadn’t told him, but the trace they’d run on Caitlin’s mobile had shown where and when he claimed they’d parted company. His car had been picked up by an ANPR camera at the edge of Windermere soon after Caitlin had got out of it, so there was little likelihood he’d stayed around or gone back for her.

The trace on Caitlin’s phone had shown her waiting at a junction for a while and then she’d moved towards Kendal before her phone signal dropped away. That meant her phone had been smashed, as the triangulation signals on all mobiles work even if there’s no battery power or a battery in the phone.

With the interview a waste of time, Beth and Thompson headed for the car park as soon as they’d written up their reports.

As she trudged towards her car, Beth felt her dejection in the slump of her shoulders and the heaviness of her feet. Tomorrow promised to be another long day and if it was anything like today, it would involve a lot of dead ends and futile interviews that brought them no closer to catching the Dragon Master.

The demoralising effect of such days was bad enough for Beth to endure, but what really burned at her was that she, and the rest of the team, were no closer to finding a killer who showed every sign of planning to kill again.