‘What? I think it was John the Baptist. My reception is terrible, we must be in the Midlands. I’ll speak to you first thing. Have a think about what I’ve said. I’m with the coroner tomorrow for Carry Tomlin’s autopsy. It couldn’t be pulled forward because there were complications with another operation apparently.’ They hung up.

Finally, she called Johnny, who told her that the climb had been an out and out success. Her shoulders dropped slightly and she breathed fully, taking in the calm of the moment. The night flashed by the large window and, in first class, she was alone again. It was a rare opportunity to sit and be in the present, rather than running to the future all the time. Her job was all about the conclusion and the climax, rather than grounding oneself in today: if she did that, then she might lose vital information and momentum, and the next victim didn’t have the luxury of spare time. There was no doubt in her mind that there were at least two more killings coming, and that they’d be found somewhere along the opposite perpendicular to the line she’d drawn from Braithwaite to Thirlmere car park, if she didn’t crack the case soon.

‘Can you come here tonight?’ he asked.

‘I was thinking about going to Eden House.’

‘Are you crazy? Your team is doing all it can. You’re working from the sparrow’s fart till you drop. You need to rest.’

‘Did you rest when you patrolled in Helmand?’

‘Absolutely. If we didn’t we’d have lost more men. A tired soldier is an inevitability, but picking the right moment to rest is the job of the officer in charge. Exhaustion is different to weariness. Come here, come and say hi to Josie. I’m cooking.’

‘She won’t be up.’

‘You’ll see her in the morning if you stay. She’s like you, she wakes up and expects everyone else to do the same.’

She smiled, though Johnny couldn’t see it, but she knew he felt it. ‘OK. My train gets in around one a.m. I’ll get a cab.’

She spent the rest of the journey fixating on the map of the Lake District. She drew axes this way and that, but one person’s choice of location could be a millimetre away from the next person’s and she still had no solid profile on the elusive Kirk Junker. It had crossed her mind that Fred O’Reilly, along with all of his cronies, was having her on, pulling her leg to cover the fact that Kirk Junker didn’t exist and was in fact a smoke screen, behind whom to hide the fact that they were all in on it.