Thompson strode into the office with Unthank trailing in his wake. Both men looked weary but determined.

Unthank perched himself on the end of her desk. ‘I went back to see Eric and his comb-over. Showed him a picture of the wings. He says they’re from a buzzard.’

Beth closed her eyes and digested this news. Not only was the Dragon Master escalating in every sense of the word, he must also be coming to the natural end of his killing cycle, as there were fewer birds she could think of with larger wingspans than a buzzard. Off the top of her head she got albatross, condor and golden eagle, but she couldn’t think of any others.

She made a note to try and find out where stuffed birds could be bought. If she could find someone who’d recently bought a sparrowhawk, buzzard and larger birds as well, she’d have the Dragon Master.

Beth’s attention returned to the notepad on her desk. A Google search had given her a list of twenty-three names beginning with FRANC. From there she’d identified thirty-nine people in the county called Francis, Frances, Francesca or Franco and a baby called Franciszka. Nine of them were either under sixteen or over seventy, which left thirty names: sixteen men and fourteen women.

Of the sixteen men, fifteen were unknown to the police and the sixteenth was only known to them because of his habit of making complaints about his neighbours. None of the fourteen women had a police record, but regardless, O’Dowd had insisted that all thirty were contacted by their local CID teams for preliminary questioning. It was a long shot at best, but with no stronger leads to follow, they had to chase down the ones they had. If it turned out to be another dead end, at least it would be the other teams’ time that was wasted.

Because they had a definite time frame for Caitlin’s murder at Lonsdale Castle, they’d be able to quickly establish whether or not the thirty people whose names fit the acrostic had alibis.

With the search for the killer now ranging countywide, Beth felt more like a coordinator than an investigator. O’Dowd had been in and out of the office as she liaised with the press office and DCI Phinn. Another press conference was scheduled for early afternoon and O’Dowd was to front the briefing once again. To say that the DI was crotchety was an understatement. She’d barked orders, railed against the impossibility of the investigation and exhorted them all to get her the results she needed.

Unthank answered his phone and passed the receiver to Beth. As she listened to the desk sergeant from Kendal, Beth scratched the few scant details they had onto her pad.

A young woman had been reported missing by her mother. Her name was Sarah.

Beth almost dismissed the call, but then she remembered that francs were a unit of currency. Surely that wasn’t what this would be about? Nothing in the investigation seemed to connect currency to a killer displaying such personal, violent motives.

But she would still run the call about the missing woman past O’Dowd to see what the DI thought. With the number of victims spiralling, any missing person was at risk.