As they walked away, a spark ignited a flame inside her head and, where memory had recently failed her, she recalled the lazy, summer drama of the tabloid press.

‘The killer has a name of sorts. The killer is human but the name isn’t.’

It came to her like a curse through the river-bound fog.

‘The name of the killer is The Ghoul.’

3

8.44 am

Alone in the incident room on the top floor of Trinity Road police station, Detective Constable Barney Cole, muscular and on the verge of middle age, looked at the landline phone on his desk and saw that half an hour had passed since the duty superintendent in Warrington had told him she’d get back to him within ten to twenty minutes.

Cole looked down at the map of the north-west of England spread across his desk and willed the phone to ring.

He picked up the black marker pen he’d already used to make a dot on the map. Warrington. A black dot on the River Irwell near the Moore Nature Reserve, dated 08/2021.

Cole looked at the map and stopped at the point at Otterspool Promenade where he’d learned a second body had been discovered, deposited on the mud. He dotted the place and dated it 12/2021.

Cole tried to visualize lines between the two highlighted places to establish the beginning of some pattern but he just couldn’t see one.

He heard the door to the incident room open, continued gazing at the map, saw the blue of the water, and wondered, with grim certainty that it would happen, where the next body would show up.

‘Planning your holidays?’ asked Detective Sergeant Karl Stone, heading into the kitchen area in the corner of the open-plan room.

‘Something like that, Karl,’ replied Cole, taking the marked map to the glass noticeboard and putting it up with Blu-Tack. ‘You sound cold, matey.’

‘It’s bloody freezing down at the prom. Do you want a coffee?’

‘Get by the radiator. I’ll make it for you.’

Dressed in a black overcoat that looked three sizes too big for him, to Cole’s eyes, Stone was the human incarnation of a vulture.

As Stone headed for the warmth and Cole to the kitchen, their paths crossed.

‘Any more from Otterspool Promenade?’ asked Cole.

‘Young female victim. Water. Forensic nightmare. It’s a repeat performance.’

‘How far from the promenade itself was she discovered?’

Cole spooned coffee into two cups, heard the rising rumble of the kettle.

‘It took Eve two and a half minutes to get from the shore to the body but it was like she was walking in quicksand. I’d estimate sixty metres.’

Cole glanced over his shoulder as he poured hot water into the cups. Stone had his back to him and was looking at the map.

‘I’ve got pictures from the scene,’ said Cole. ‘But what was she like in reality?’