‘We looked at all the local men who had a history of violence towards women and none of them, not one, had a back story that could have reached to the depths of what that lunatic did to Sandra O’Day. They all had drop-dead alibis. We started winding the investigation down after two months. It’s still an open case but it’s the most frustrating investigation I’ve been involved in all down the years.’

‘Pebbles On The Beach?’ asked Clay. ‘You posted a note on the coroner’s file?’

‘Made-up name and bogus address.’

Ferguson’s head dropped like a man who’d scored an own goal in a one-nil cup final defeat as the referee blew the final whistle.

‘You can’t magic evidence out of the air when there simply isn’t any, Dave,’ said Clay as she looked at the second picture, of Sandra O’Day’s body being hauled out of the water, the muscles on her face withered and brown and not resembling anything human.

She passed the top two images on to Hendricks and saw a third picture of Sandra in an unzipped body bag at the water’s edge.

She came to an image of two frogmen wading into the water and showed it to Ferguson.

‘They found nothing in the water. A team of six searched for two days and nights, Eve.’

Clay saw a picture of a laptop on a bed in a room that was predominantly pink.

‘She was on Pebbles On The Beach. That’s where she met him. They stopped communicating on the website and went on to mobiles. The Ghoul had her phone and guess fucking what, we came nowhere near his device. No Ghoul. No phone. It was as brutal as it was heartbreaking.’

Ferguson sighed and folded his arms across his chest.

‘Time wise,’ said Clay. All eyes turned to her. ‘The time between his first kill and second kill, we’re not going to get that luxury this time. It’s going to be weeks if we’re lucky, not months, until his next outing. His head’s probably swollen to twice its normal size. He thinks he’s Mr Undetectable. He’s taken on Warrington Police and got away with it. So far. Now he’s taken us on. Thank you, Dave. Do you have anything to add?’

‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’ He stood up and stretched the tension out of his limbs. ‘I’ll keep you posted, Eve, if anything crops up our end.’

‘Likewise, Dave.’

Clay watched him walk to the door of the incident room and felt a surge of sympathy for Ferguson.

‘Dave!’ He stopped, turned. ‘Thank you. This can’t have been easy for you. I appreciate you turning up in person so quickly.’