The Range Rover purred along the road, its mighty engine coping with the various gradients with smooth efficiency. When the man who used a false name flicked the indicator, he saw a girl standing by the road with her thumb out. She was maybe eighteen and would probably be pretty if she smiled.

Whether it was the drizzling rain or some other factor that had spoiled her day didn’t matter to him. She was alone in the middle of nowhere. Brown hair was matted to her head and there was a rucksack hanging off one shoulder.

He’d seen enough hikers in the Lake District to know the rucksack on her back was designed more for the odd night away than serious camping. Her clothes were wrong too. Instead of breathable waterproofs, she wore a pair of denim shorts with thick tights and a fleece that may keep the cold out but that, when it got wet, would become a sodden weight which sapped both energy and heat from her body.

It was unthinkable that she be left out here to suffer the cloying dampness. He had to come to her rescue, be the white knight.

He pulled over and lowered the passenger window. ‘Where you going?’

‘The nearest train station, please.’ She gave a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t even know where it is?’

The girl’s accent was more Liverpudlian than a plate of scouse and a season ticket for Anfield. Even in the face of his offer to help, there was a set to her jaw that spoke of more than the discomfort of a soaking. Her eyes looked as though she’d been crying, though not so much they’d become puffy.

‘The nearest station is Oxenholme. It’s just the other side of Kendal. I’m going that way if you want a lift.’

‘That’d be boss.’ The girl climbed in and rested her rucksack between her feet.

He pulled away and pointed the bonnet towards Kendal. ‘How come you ended up standing out there in the middle of nowhere?’

‘I picked up my boyfriend’s phone. To read the text message he’d just got, like.’ From the corner of his eye he saw her jaw stiffen. ‘It was a message from his ex. Said she still loved him too. Like I was putting up with that. Nobody cheats on me, like.’

‘Sounds like you’re better off without him if he put you out in the middle of nowhere after you confronted him.’

‘Like he got a say. I tossed his phone out the window, and when he stopped to get it, like, I did one.’

The girl’s speech patterns weren’t easy for him to follow and he despised the interspersion of ‘likes’ into her sentences, but there was little he could do about that. A knight didn’t get to choose the damsel he saved. He just answered the distress call.

That the girl was sharing her break-up with him so soon after meeting him also felt wrong. He put it down to the rise of social media and the way some people couldn’t live their lives without posting every detail for the world to see.

He didn’t understand why people would share every aspect of their lives. Nobody knew anything about his private life. Everyone was kept at arm’s length, even those who thought of him as a friend knew very little about him. It had earned him a lot of strange looks over the years, but he’d never cared for the opinions of others. They could think whatever they liked about him; as far as he was concerned, they were serfs speculating about their king.

‘I take it you’re going home then?’

‘Too right. Gonna go right back home, get myself changed and then I’m gonna shag both his brothers. That’ll, like, show him.’

The man who used a false name doubted the teen Romeo would be shown anything. So far as he could see, the damsel and her ex had the morals of rattlesnakes and the libidos of rabbits.

When he looked past her to check if he could pull out of a junction, he saw something that quickened his pulse.

Hanging round her neck was a thin chain with the letter ‘C’ hanging from it.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Caitlin.’ A piece of chewing gum was fed into her mouth.

There it was; the confirmation. He’d had to ask. The letter may have been for the errant lover or a deceased sibling. Yet it was there, freely given, the affirmation of her eligibility.

Change of plan.

The next part was simple. He took a drink from the bottle of water in the cup holder then lifted another water bottle from the door pocket. ‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Ta.’

The girl took a couple of healthy swigs from the bottle.

The man with the false name drove around the back roads until he saw Caitlin succumb to the effects of the Rohypnol he’d laced the spare bottle of water with.

She was no longer the damsel he’d deliver to the safety of Oxenholme Station. He had another destination in mind for her. He knew exactly where he’d leave her and the message it would send.

After leaving Angus Keane at Arthuret Hall he’d returned to Highstead Castle for Nick Langley. It didn’t matter that the police had learned of the other site as quick as they had, what mattered was that they’d be unable to work out why he’d chosen to use Highstead again.

He’d returned for no other reason than to make them wonder. They’d be able to tell how long each body had been there, but not why he’d gone back. They’d waste their time looking for reasons and connections that didn’t exist.

He smiled as he realised he was no longer the knight.

St George had become the dragon.

Or rather: the dragon maker.