‘Let’s have a look at the helmets,’ he said. She followed him.

‘Have you worked on the murder victims this week?’ she whispered. He stopped and looked at her, pretending to be mad at her impertinence, but he couldn’t.

‘I could get into a lot of trouble discussing this with you,’ he said.

‘Just tell me if you learned a lot, and Kelly is going to catch him?’

‘Of course she is.’

Chapter 40

Kelly left Penrith on time. She’d indulged in an upgrade to first class, and reclined in the large comfortable seat, with no one next to or opposite her. The quiet was luxurious and she intended to spend the whole journey taking her time to ponder.

Sometimes, the job got in the way of a good investigation, in the sense that being busy created stress, and stress clouded judgement. To sit and think, to chew things over, was a real treat. She placed her phone, iPad and laptop beside her, should she need them, and settled back to reflect. However, the expected relief never came and, instead, nerves fluttered under her ribcage at the thought of what she would soon walk into.

She separated each of the two murders and approached them independently, over time, starting at the beginning. First she rewound to Mary’s house, late on the Friday night, the distressed animals making a racket outside, and Mary going to see what the fuss was all about. The neighbours – she surmised – were used to the commotion, and so turned up their TVs. Whoever was in Mary’s yard gave her very little time to react: no 999 call, and no reports of screaming. It could mean that she knew her attacker, and they talked. Or the animals stopped their noise. The conversation didn’t end well and Mary was overpowered, forced to watch the torture of her beloved animals, and set upon with two weapons. Both she and Rob had checked the inventory of the home, and the athame was missing. It could mean that Mary had taken it somewhere, or it could mean that it was the second murder weapon and had been removed by the killer. The murderer didn’t bother to clean up footprints around the body and throughout the kitchen because they were wearing standard wellies that could be purchased at a thousand different outlets across the world. They were more concerned with advertising their power and control by tattooing the victim and leaving the sign of the Moon Goddess, much the same as branding the animals with the fire element. They then calmly drove away in a vehicle pre-parked in the private lane behind the garden.

Mary knew them.