With Lee charged for robbery and with nothing else to go on, Natalie had sent the team home before they all became too disillusioned. It was a tall order to regroup and go back to the beginning to search for their perpetrator. Adam was troubling her. She couldn’t work out if he was telling the truth or was an accomplished liar. With no suspects to consider other than the teenagers who were in hiding, she was anxious the leads would dry up.

The taps were running next door in the en-suite. David was shaving. He used a brush and soap, a traditional method that she quite liked. It was nice to watch him scrape away the foam to leave perfectly smooth skin, but today she didn’t want to slip into the bathroom to chat and watch him make his deft strokes. She couldn’t face him at all. She didn’t have the energy to go back over why he’d felt the need to stare at gambling websites. She dragged herself from the bed and headed for the family bathroom, where she sat on the side of the bath as it filled and thought back over the investigation. It wasn’t moving along quickly enough for her liking. She’d followed protocol and got nowhere. What hadn’t she done? Could she have handled it any differently?

She swirled pink gel that promised to cleanse gently and offered the soothing aromas of lotus flower and sage into the water. She hadn’t a clue of how a lotus flower actually smelt but the scent was delicate and pleasant.

David tapped lightly on the door.

‘Occupied,’ she called, sending him on his way. Her heart felt solid in her chest.

What had she done wrong? Had she missed an important clue? She ought to have brought in a criminal profiler from the outset and ascertained what sort of sick individual they were dealing with. What was the significance of the messages? Why? Who? Surely these weren’t left for the police. Or was the perpetrator taunting her and her team? On the other hand, they could be intended for either the victims or their husbands. What did it all mean? She sank into the water and stared up at the ceiling. It needed painting. A persistent rusty brown stain caused by an old damp patch had developed once more in the left-hand corner. As she studied it, images of the bloody messages floated through her mind. What was going on in the killer’s head? They’d wasted time looking into Lee’s and Adam’s whereabouts, and meanwhile the real perpetrator could well strike again. She had to find them before a third message appeared on a wall.

---

‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ Bethany’s voice was concerned.

Lucy was hunched over the laptop. ‘Some.’

‘It’s getting to you, Luce. You won’t be able to think straight if you don’t rest up when you get the opportunity.’

Lucy looked up from the screen. ‘Try telling that to my brain. It’s like some sort of independent dynamo. It whirs and whirs but it isn’t productive. I’m not getting anywhere.’

‘What have you been looking at?’

‘A victim’s Facebook page – Samantha, the woman killed yesterday. Hoping for a clue.’

‘I take it you haven’t found any.’

Lucy shook her head.

‘Don’t lose heart. You’re exhausted, you’re feeling thwarted, but you work with a formidable team who don’t know the meaning of the word failure. You’ll find this killer.’

---

Natalie headed the morning briefing. She’d tried to leave the house before the children had surfaced, without breakfast or a chance for her and David to exchange too many words, but he’d insisted on dragging up the subject of gambling. The conversation had only served to rouse suspicion. In her opinion, it needn’t have taken place. It was almost as if David was trying too hard to protest his innocence…

---

‘I suppose you checked our bank account to see if I was telling the truth?’ David says as soon as she appears in the kitchen.

‘I told you I would.’

‘And?’

‘You were right. It hasn’t been touched. You haven’t been taking money out of the account and gambling it away. There’s no need to go on about it.’

‘I want you to believe me.’

‘I believe you.’

‘Good. So that’s that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t like being interrogated.’

‘So you said, and I didn’t like the thought of you staring at a gaming website while daydreaming about betting. I don’t want to go back there, David. It almost ruined everything.’

‘I’m not stupid. Don’t treat me like I am.’

‘I’m not. I’m just wary. Really wary. And when I see one of those sites flashing on your computer, I’m only going to think one thing, aren’t I? That you’ve started betting, or playing poker, or gambling in some form.’

‘Well I’m not.’

‘What more do you want me to say?’

‘Sorry?’

‘For what? For being anxious?’

‘For not having enough faith in me.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Yeah, okay. But at least I could prove I wasn’t digging into our funds.’

‘Can we actually drop this subject now? I really have nothing more to say on it.’

‘I just wanted to make my point.’

‘For crying out loud. You made it. All right? I have to go to work now.’

‘Course. Josh has football practice tonight so I’ll take Leigh out for a burger or something while we wait for him.’

‘Sure. She’ll enjoy that. I don’t know—’

‘What time you’ll be back. I understand. See you when I see you.’

---

Lying in the bath, she’d come to some decisions about the investigation and a plan of action. She shoved away thoughts of the conversation with David and began the briefing.

‘I understand your frustration. I’m as pissed off with Adam and Lee for lying about their alibis as you are. What we mustn’t do is let it get in the way of any progress. We’ve squandered valuable time but we’ve eliminated a number of suspects and we still have our two youths who are hiding out. I highly suspect they either saw somebody or something significant, or are involved in some way. These are streetwise kids. They don’t take off without very good reason. I suggest we monitor the phones and social media sites for Finn and Hassan’s three closest friends who live in Hounslow House. That’s Abe, Mustafa and Leon. Obviously, we require their surnames. If they have any contact with a pay-as-you-go phone, we’ll take that as our cue to investigate and haul them in.’

‘Why not bring them into the station, Natalie?’ asked Ian.

‘It won’t be worthwhile. They won’t speak to us. Best to keep an eye on their online activities and see if that yields anything. I’d also like us to follow up on Samantha’s friends. See what we can learn. She might have had an argument or a run-in with somebody. See if she mentioned anything that gave rise to concern.

‘Up until now, we’ve been trying to make connections between the victims and been searching for somebody who knew both Charlotte and Samantha. I want to think outside that scenario. My biggest fear is we have a killer targeting random women, women with children. I can’t work out what sort of maniac we’re actually dealing with: the writing in blood, the violence of the attacks. We need a professional angle and I’m calling in the services of a criminal profiler. Henrik Karlsson will be joining us later.’ Henrik was one of the most renowned in the country and had written several bestsellers on the subject.

‘I’ve found out something,’ said Lucy. ‘Samantha doesn’t have auburn hair. She does now, but she’s only recently begun to dye it. I looked through her Facebook photographs, and she’s changed the colour before, but from what I can gather her natural hair colour is brown – a chestnut-brown.’

‘Same colour as Charlotte’s,’ said Natalie. ‘Might be relevant. We’ll take note. I’ve received the pathology reports for Samantha Kirkdale. She died of multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck. There were twenty-two stab wounds in total.’

‘She was twenty-two years old,’ said Lucy.

‘Maybe that’s significant too. If so, it indicates the killer knew her age.

Mike, do you want to add your findings?’

Mike, who’d been sitting quietly at the far side of the room, spoke up. ‘The knife we retrieved from the crime scene has been identified as the weapon used to kill Samantha. We were unable to lift any prints from it. We checked the kitchen drawers and discovered another eight-inch chef’s knife. It’s unlikely she’d own two similar knives so we can deduce the killer probably purchased this particular knife and took it with him to the scene of the crime. We’ve established it’s an Acelink eight-inch professional chef kitchen knife with high carbon steel blade and ergonomic wooden handle, available online from a number of retailers.’ Mike spread his hands to indicate he had finished speaking.

‘If there are no questions, let’s get on this.’ Natalie left a gap for people to speak, and when no one did she dismissed them and marched outside with Mike.

‘I don’t know which way to turn,’ she said in quiet voice. ‘Have you anything to help us?’

‘I wish I had.’

‘No fibres, hair?’

‘Plenty of both. In fact, too many. It’ll take a long time to work out what they are and to whom they belong.’

‘Any news on that paternity test request for Alfie?’

‘I’ll chase that up. We’re swamped with work but we’re giving you every priority, Natalie.’

‘I appreciate that.’

His eyes rested on hers a second too long. She didn’t break away. Part of her wanted to tell him about David but the last time she’d gone that route, they’d ended up in bed together.

‘Everything okay?’ Mike asked.

‘It would be a whole lot better if I had some idea of who’s responsible for these deaths.’

He waited in case there was more to follow, but she fell silent so he moved away. ‘I’ll see where we are with that DNA test.’

---

Natalie studied the pictures of the two victims once more – Charlotte with her glossy chestnut hair, large brown eyes under groomed eyebrows, and sad smile, and Samantha with shining auburn hair that hung past her shoulders, and wide lips. There didn’t seem to be any other physical similarities between the two women. They didn’t live near each other, frequent the same places, share any friends or interests but they were both connected to the boxing club in some way and each had a child.

Lucy put down the phone. It was the eighth call she’d made to Samantha’s friends and found out nothing else useful. She pulled up the Facebook page again. For some reason she kept coming back to it. She scrolled through the messages from the last three months, searching for a name or something to give her the breakthrough she craved. Looking at the photographs of baby Oscar from birth to present day had been painful. She’d shared Samantha’s experience of watching him grow from a helpless babe to a charming, happy toddler. Thirteen months. How quickly that time went by. One minute he was sleeping in his mother’s arms, the next grinning at the camera and waving the remnants of a sausage roll in his chubby fist. It would be like this with Spud. He or she would grow in the blink of an eye. The idea frightened her. She had no way of knowing how she’d react after the baby was born. She scrolled through the pictures, pausing at one of them, a selfie, taken outside their new home, with the caption, ‘New beginnings.’ She stopped reading. There. She clicked onto the search engine and then double-checked with information on file.

‘I’ve got something.’

Natalie materialised from nowhere. ‘What?’

Lucy enlarged the photograph she’d been examining. Behind Samantha’s head was an estate agent’s letting board. ‘Samantha rented her house in Bose Street from Cartwright and Butler estate agency in Samford. Rob Cooke, Charlotte Brannon’s boyfriend, works for them.’

‘Ring the agency.’

Lucy tried the number and was put straight through to Rob.

‘Put him on speakerphone,’ said Natalie.

‘Mr Cooke, it’s DS Carmichael from Samford Police headquarters.’

‘Hello, Sergeant. Do you have any news about Charlotte?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not ringing about that. I wondered if you could tell me your whereabouts for yesterday afternoon.’

‘Yesterday afternoon? Why?’

‘I’d prefer you to answer my question, sir.’

‘I was in Sheffield, at a departmental meeting.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’

‘Ring Shelly Bradshaw, the company secretary. She arranged it.’

‘Do you have a number for her?’

‘One second.’ There was a momentary silence and then he read it out. ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’

‘Do you know a Samantha Kirkdale?’

‘Name rings a bell but I can’t place her.’

‘She rented one of your properties, a house in Bose Street, two months ago.’

‘That’s where I’ve seen the name. It was written on one of the contracts. She was my colleague Suzie Connolly’s client, not mine.’

‘But you remember her?’

‘I might have seen her in the office when she came in to discuss arrangements with Suzie, but I don’t recall her. I don’t handle lettings and rentals, you see. I’m on sales. Shall I pass you over to Suzie?’

‘That won’t be necessary, thank you.’

She ended the call and faced Natalie. ‘Fuck it! I’m going around in circles here.’

‘Check his alibi.’

‘But he didn’t know her.’

‘I know, but I’m also spinning around here, so it’d be best to check out his alibi and add him to the growing list of non-suspects I’ll be able to hand over to Aileen when she asks for a progress report.’

Lucy dialled the number and spoke to Shelly, who confirmed Rob’s presence at a departmental meeting that didn’t end until 6 p.m. She flung her mobile onto the desk. ‘That’s that. Now what?’

‘We keep digging. This is police work, Lucy. We keep going and going until we find whatever we’re looking for.’

‘Some days, I wonder if I’m cut out for this,’ Lucy mumbled.

‘Tell me about it. We all have days like that,’ came the reply.