She googled the symbol with Ted still on the phone and an image came up that fitted what Ted told her. She stared at it. She’d seen it before, but she couldn’t place where. She recalled what The Teacher had said in the recent letter. And the Moon Goddess returns to slumber…

‘Hold on, Ted. Have you seen this mark anywhere, before today?’

‘Well, that’s why I was calling. I was going to just record it in the report but when I studied the photographs from the crime scene to comment on the direction of the blows on Mary’s body, it was actually marked in the floor.’

‘What? Which one? Which photo?’ Kelly opened the Mary Hales file and flicked through the photographs frantically. She saw nothing, but then she was rushing, and her heart was pounding because she’d realised where she’d seen the sign of the Moon Goddess. It had been written next to Edna Beverley’s phone number on her son’s missing poster.

‘Wait a minute, it’s evidence article MH101,’ Ted said.

Kelly clicked on the relevant photo. ‘Right, I’m on it, where? I can’t see it.’

‘Spin the photograph once to the left, I only did it myself to check how the blood spatter covered the floor on her left side, absolutely confirming that she was in the supine position when the majority of the wounds were inflicted.’

The detail sent a slight shiver through Kelly’s body. Mary Hales looked into her killer’s face as she died. They already knew that, but to be reminded of it was unwelcome. Kelly tried to ignore the body on the screen in front of her and search around it, after she’d spun the photograph around.

‘Fucking hell. Sorry, Ted.’

‘Can you see it?’

‘Yes. I’m zooming in. Does it look like it was drawn in blood by a finger to you?’ Kelly asked.

‘That was my theory exactly.’

‘Oh God.’

‘What is it, Kelly?’

‘It couldn’t be a smear as a result of there being so much blood, could it?’