The mystery girl intrigued them all. As far as workload went, the team had enough hours to dedicate to the case for now; should something more serious come up, then they’d have to redirect resources, but the office was quiet. The vast majority of missing persons reported in Cumbria each year turned up safe and well. As for the others, it was never clear if the person in question was missing inside the National Park or simply last seen there. They faced a bigger problem, though – it would appear that Carla Rigg did not want to be found. If so, she’d be relegated to the depths of cold and inactive cases in the bowels of the constabulary, and looked at every five years or so. Without ID, they didn’t really have a case. Kelly wanted to know why, if the young woman didn’t want to be found, she had stripped and wandered into a tourist destination? The psychology report would have helped her answer that question, because they still didn’t know if Carla Rigg was nuts. Kelly didn’t think she was, but nutters came in all shapes and guises. It was her turn to speak and she thanked DS Umshaw.

‘We now go public with the photograph. If she wants to come forward, she will, and if she doesn’t and someone reports her whereabouts, then at least we can check on her welfare. I didn’t want to release an image until we got to know her better, but we’re left with no choice. We’ll sit on the photograph of the mystery man for now.’

They swiftly moved on to other business, though none of them could get the young woman out of their heads. Kelly walked back to her office and stared at the pile of files on her desk. She resigned herself to an afternoon of trawling, and sat down heavily. When she needed a break, she’d offer to take Rob to Castlerigg; it wasn’t far.

The review cases within the files had been selected on a broad remit: length of time inactive, seriousness and simply falling into the treadmill of assessment deadlines. She picked out a brown folder – it was fairly thick – and began reading.