Best guess for this image: Richard Ezra.

‘You’re shitting me,’ he said to himself.

Underneath this writing a cluster of websites appeared and beneath this dozens of images of physically similar handsome men.

Cole scrolled down slowly through the bank of images until he came to the exact one the killer had sent to his victim. He clicked on the image and visited the website that hosted it.

The picture Cole had run through Google Reverse Image Search had linked up with the Facebook profile picture of a man called Richard Ezra. On the Facebook profile, Richard Ezra was not smiling into a void; he was looking at an incredibly beautiful blonde woman.

Cole skimmed and scanned the home page and saw that Richard Ezra was a partner with Doherty Estates and Properties on Allerton Road, a fifteen-minute ride from Trinity Road police station. There were images of Richard Ezra in a less casual setting, sitting with a group of formally dressed older men. There were pictures of Richard with the same blonde woman who had been edited out of the picture that The Ghoul had so far circulated to his victims.

He recognised the glass front of the office that Richard worked in, situated on the commercial end of Allerton Road, in the cluster of estate agents, legal firms and financial operators.

Cole clicked on the Bio tab and, reading the information, made mental notes.

Richard Ezra wrote about being excited to go on his holidays to Florence, and that was the last post he’d made.

He clicked on the Contacts tab and saw the address and landline telephone number for Doherty Estates and Properties.

He dialled the seven digits and listened to the ringtone. The answer machine kicked in.

‘You have reached Doherty…’

At the other end the receiver was snatched up, and Cole got in quickly.

‘My name’s Detective Sergeant Barney Cole. I’ll send you a picture of my warrant card. I’m based at Trinity Road police station a few miles from your office.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’ She was well-spoken and, by the sound of her voice, Cole pictured her as mid twenties and with a cold-fish manner that could have been a front for the workplace or just the way she was. ‘How can we help you, Detective Sergeant Cole?’

‘I was wondering if I could speak with Mr Richard Ezra?’

She asked, ‘Is this a sick joke?’

In moments, the temperature in her icy voice plummeted to arctic depths.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Cole.

‘Excuse me… Mr Doherty?’ she called.

He heard her hand smothering the receiver and the phone being passed to the boss.

‘If this is a Trojan horse to try and wrong foot us over our client Dale McGee …’

Dale McGee, thought Cole, one of the city’s most notorious gangsters, currently on remand in Walton Prison.

‘Mr Doherty …’

‘We are a well-established and respectable firm of estate agents.’