Beth sloshed some more wine into her glass and gave a dozen silent curses. Along with O’Dowd and the rest of the team, she’d run Ingersoll’s name through every database and program they had.

The only hit they’d registered was when they’d checked the General Register Office and fed in his date of birth. According to their records, Kevin Ingersoll had died at the age of six.

This suggested that the Kevin Ingersoll they were looking for was an alias created from a gravestone that matched the imposter’s age. People who created aliases almost only ever did so for nefarious reasons. Every member of the team agreed on this, a theory added to when Thompson and Unthank had visited his cottage, and they’d found it deserted.

When morning came around, they could get in touch with banks and other services, but until then, their investigation had ground to a halt.

They’d also press harder at Harry Quirke. O’Dowd formally charged him with stalking and harassment and had kept him in the cells at Penrith station overnight. As much as Ingersoll seemed to be a more promising candidate, the DI wasn’t taking any chances.

Everyone’s frustrations had boiled over and they’d ended up in a four-way shouting match until all of them saw the futility of arguing among themselves, calmed down and took themselves home.

Beth got up to go to the toilet and tottered as she went up the stairs. She was drunker than she’d planned, but she wasn’t ready to stop drinking yet. Regardless of what Dr Hewson might think, alcohol wasn’t her crutch. Today had ended in the worst way. They’d been so close to making a serious breakthrough, and then their investigation had once again ground to a shuddering halt.

When Beth got back downstairs she picked up the remote control and flicked through the channels without finding anything that grabbed her interest. Reality TV bored her and the dramas she usually watched were too heavy after the day she’d had.

Instead of the TV, she picked up a magazine and read non-stories about celebrities she didn’t know, until the bottle of wine was empty and her eyelids were heavier than her mother’s suet pudding.

Despite her best attempts to remove the case from her mind, it was still there when she ascended the stairs. Even with her vision slightly blurry from wine and exhaustion, she could still recount the details of her spreadsheet.

As she clambered into bed, Beth was mentally going through the list of places Rachel had worked when she hit on the connection. Rachel had worked for six months at a sister hotel to the one where they’d spoken to Lawrence Eversham; a hotel he must have at least partly owned. She could remember the Lake Windermere hotel’s reception, see the overly made-up receptionist and the painting on the wall: a watercolour of the Lake District.

If the painting was a Fiona McGhie, then it connected Lawrence Eversham to three of the five victims. As always seemed to be the way with this case, there was no solid evidence to follow, just suspicions and coincidences.

Beth picked up her phone and looked at the screen as she battled indecision. She knew she was more than a little tipsy and she didn’t want to call O’Dowd late at night to offer a drunken theory that may well be a waste of time.

On the other hand, if Eversham was the killer, the sooner they caught him the better.