They were silent and collective disappointment marbled the air.

‘Me neither,’ said Clay.

‘Maybe he’s getting a little spooked,’ said Hendricks. ‘Maybe after his prolific activity, he knows he’s left a trail behind him…’

‘You could have a point, Bill.’

‘What’s the plan?’ asked Stone.

‘I’ve ordered in CCTV footage from in and around the Albert Dock. All the CCTV footage from the different venues feeds into a central monitoring centre operated by the Dock’s 24-Hour Security Services. It’s on its way over now. I’m banking on him being a creature of habit and I’ve asked for footage leading down the front towards the padlocked railings from seven-thirty pm onwards. If he told Annie Boyd and Amanda Winton to be there for eight pm, I reckon he’ll have given the same instruction to Francesca Christie. So far so good from his point of view. It’s working. Why make changes to a winning game plan?’

‘I’ve made my way into it,’ said Poppy Waters. ‘I’m on to Francesca’s desktop.’

‘How are you going to get on to her Pebbles On The Beach profile? asked Clay.

‘In the first instance, I’ll try using the letters Francesca Christie to crack her username. Did you know there’s a top twenty of most commonly used passwords in the English-speaking world? Guess what comes up at number five. iloveyou, all lowercase. Tens of thousands of people use it.’

‘What about when the rest of the world wakes up in the morning?’ asked Riley. ‘What then, Eve?’

‘Francesca worked at Maguire Holdings on the commercial end of Allerton Road. I’m going to show up there tomorrow before the doors open, talk to the people who worked with her, ask if she’d told anyone about her communication with this man, or if she’d let anyone in on any information about her date last night. Karl.’ She looked to Stone. ‘I’d like you to come with me, act as a second pair of eyes.’

Clay turned to Riley and said, ‘Gina, in the morning I’d like you to chase up CCTV4U, see how they’re getting on with cleaning up the footage of the white van heading away down Heath Road from the Amanda Winton body drop-off. See if we’ve got a clearer shot of the man in the passenger seat.’

Poppy Waters stood up, stepped back from Francesca Christie’s laptop and looked down at the screen as if it had just dished out an insult to her.

‘I’m not having much luck with this method,’ said Poppy. ‘And I don’t want to get locked out by the system.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Clay.

Poppy turned the screen so everyone could see the brightly coloured pebbles sitting on golden sand and being washed over by clear water. The irony of the purity of the image hit Clay hard.