She expected him to complain, to disagree, or to insist he support her, but he didn’t. He accepted her opinion and stayed in the car. She almost regretted suggesting it but knew it was the right thing to do. Rarely did police officers hardened to crime exclaim in such a manner, as the firearms officer had. Whatever they’d seen was serious. She hoped it wasn’t the bodies of Daphne and Gloria Junker. Or Jock Harris.

She was joined by the three uniforms from the squad car. They approached the farmhouse.

‘Has someone called a medic?’ she asked the AR team.

‘Yes, but I don’t think there’s any rush, ma’am.’

Her stomach sank. She followed the officers inside, stepping through the broken doorway. The place stank: that was her first impression. It was also cold and dark. They walked into a kitchen, and heard from the other room that someone was pacifying the dogs.

‘How many dogs are there?’

‘Three. They’re friendly enough.’

The kitchen was filthy and Tesco bags were hung off the back of chairs, full of rubbish. Unwashed pots were everywhere. Flies flew up in groups like birds, when disturbed. She daren’t touch anything, and screwed up her nose.

She recognised the smell. It was worse than the mortuary.

Thoughts of being too late plagued her mind and she braced herself for finding Jock and the girl in the next room, completing the five. Would this be the rage to balance the random? But it didn’t fit the pentacle. It was the final joke after all. And still they didn’t know who Kirk Junker was. This was the house that had once been owned by Harry O’Connor. Did Kirk Junker go around stealing people’s names and moving into dead people’s homes?

Her heart raced.

When she walked through the door, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw, and she was glad she’d suggested Johnny stay in the car.

The bodies were stiff and discoloured, partly rotted, partly disfigured. They were tied to two chairs: one each. They looked as though they’d been propped up there to watch a soap opera on TV. A thousand scenarios dive-bombed into her head, exploding every theory she’d toyed with for the last two weeks.

She heard a siren in the distance and looked at one of the uniforms. Another gagged next to her and she suggested he wait outside.

‘Please don’t touch anything. How close did you get to the bodies?’ She asked one of the AR team members who’d got in here first. He stroked the dogs. They wagged their tails, disinterested in the corpses. She peered towards the two bodies, looking for the different stages of insect activity.

‘Just to make sure they were dead, ma’am.’