The car pulled to a halt and Beth heard the ratchet of a handbrake being applied. She was cold and stiff, but as much as she could be, she was ready to seize her chance.

When the boot lid was opened she was confronted by a figure dressed all in black. There was a shotgun over his arm and curiosity in his eyes. She knew the question he wanted the answer to and kept her face blank.

His face was uncovered now, but she didn’t look at it. Didn’t want him to see a spark of recognition in case he forced more of the drug-laced water into her mouth.

He seemed to buy that she was drugged. His gloved hands grasped her pyjama-clad legs and fed her feet out of the boot. Next he took hold of her torso and lifted her onto her feet. The grass beneath her toes was cold, but Beth kept her face in one position and forced herself not to shift from foot to foot.

When Beth moved her head to one side she saw the shape of another human.

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. It would be all she could do to escape Lawrence. If he had an accomplice, she was doomed.

Two killers made a lot of sense. Setting up the deposit scenes would be easier, as would snatching the victims. She had to get a look at this other person. See if she recognised them on the slim chance that she got out of this alive.

Before she could turn her head, Lawrence spun her round and freed her right arm from the handcuffs. As she turned, Beth got a glimpse of a female head and red hair. Even as she was wondering if the woman was Lawrence’s accomplice, she heard the rasp of the handcuffs fastening again.

Beth turned her head and looked at the woman. Sarah Hardy’s face was blank, registering neither fear nor happiness.

That was the look she had to achieve; the state of indifferent acceptance. Memories of her modelling days helped. When on photoshoots she’d had to arrange her face in various ways for hours on end. It was a form of acting, and while she’d never been likely to win an Oscar, she’d learned ways to manipulate her expression and hold it for as long as was necessary.

The confirmation that Kevin Ingersoll was an alias used by Lawrence didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that she’d found Sarah alive and well. Sarah being here meant that Beth couldn’t escape, even if they weren’t handcuffed together. It was one thing to flee a killer to save your own life. To do so leaving someone still in the killer’s clutches was wrong on every possible level.

As a police officer, Beth knew that it was her job to save Sarah. There was no way she could live with herself if she ran off and left the girl behind. That she was tethered to Sarah would only complicate things further. The redhead was fully in thrall to the drugs Lawrence had fed her, and she’d be slow to react and may even refuse to come along. Fleeing Lawrence would be tricky enough without having to drag an unwilling Sarah behind her.

Lawrence pulled two bags from the back seat of the car and slung a backpack over one shoulder. The shotgun was fed into the boot and the car locked up. With the shotgun out of harm’s way, Beth considered making a run for it. Had Sarah not been so drugged she may have acted upon the idea.

Beth gave the surrounding area a quick scan. There was a huge old building with grills over the windows to one side and there was a smattering of trees topping a grassy bank. Streetlights peeked between the leaves of the trees and there were the sounds of occasional passing vehicles. Off in the distance Beth could hear the whoop of an ambulance siren. It took her a moment, but she recognised where they were. A place she used to picnic with her parents when she was a child, no less. Workington Hall.

Like the other murder sites, Workington Hall had fallen into disrepair and then ruin after a long and illustrious history. From her research into historic houses, Beth knew that it was once known as Curwen Castle; the building had started its life as a timber peel tower before morphing into a stone tower which in turn became a small castle by the fifteenth century.

Mary Queen of Scots had been received at the castle with full honours, only for the next day to see her hustled off to Carlisle Castle, where she was held for a short time before being transported to London, where her long years of captivity followed.

Workington Hall had fallen empty in 1929, only for the War Office to commission the building as a billet for troops during the Second World War. A significant fire had gutted large areas of the building and the troops had moved out.

Unlike the other grand houses used by the Dragon Master, Workington Hall was located in a built-up area. Namely the town of Workington.

Lawrence told them to each take a bag.

The one Beth picked up was three feet long and light. If she had to guess what was in it, she’d say a pair of wings.

Lawrence took Sarah’s arm and led them towards the rear of the castle. Along the back wall there was a doorway with a metal grill bolted to the wall to prevent entry. It was darker here and while Beth could still see the odd streetlight, there was far less chance of anyone seeing them.

Beth stood motionless as Lawrence shucked off his own backpack and rummaged in it for a moment. When his hands emerged they were holding what appeared to be a small blowtorch. He lit it and fiddled with a pair of knobs at the base of the handle until its hissing flame turned ice blue.

When he held it to the brackets securing the grill, they glowed red then yellow as the metal melted away under the fierce heat. Beth used the five minutes it took him to cut through all four brackets to try and assess Sarah’s state of mind.

It seemed as if Sarah was fully in the grip of the drug. There was no spark in her eyes, and when she gave a tug on Sarah’s arm, the woman looked down to the handcuffs rather than at Beth. Due to Sarah’s lack of comprehension of what was about to happen, Beth realised that she’d have to try to disable Lawrence, rather than flee him.

She was tempted to slam a fist against Lawrence’s temple but knew that she’d be lucky to knock him out with just one punch. If she failed, she’d then have to fight a desperate and angry man with only the use of one hand. It was a fight she’d lose and she’d pay for her mistake with her life.

With the grill out of the way, Lawrence told Sarah to go inside. Like an obedient child, Sarah did as she was told, the handcuff on her right arm pulling Beth along with her. Even in the dark areas of the castle, there was enough ambient moonlight for Beth to see the two squares of missing flesh on Sarah’s back. The fact Sarah was wearing a slip with narrow straps made Beth wonder if Sarah had been taken in her sleep the way she had and forced to make the call to her mother at gunpoint.

As Beth followed Sarah, she felt sharp pebbles pricking the soles of her feet, but that wasn’t her greatest worry. What was really beginning to concern her was that she was feeling less and less like resisting. She knew it was the drug doing its job, having seeped into her bloodstream via her saliva glands, but she also knew that she had to fight it, had to recognise where her free will began and ended. She mustn’t let the drug take control of her.

Everything must be questioned and if it didn’t seem in her best interests, she must act to prevent the drug taking control so she could save Sarah and herself.