They’d arranged to meet Josie at Ted’s for dinner tonight, and they’d decided to fit in a run after work. Josie was at the climbing wall in Keswick and would make her way directly to Ted’s small cottage afterwards. They both marvelled at the closeness between the pensioner and the teenager. Kelly was sure that it had something to do with the fact that Ted doted on her and spoiled her but she also couldn’t deny that there was a genuine mutual joy they shared. Kelly felt a pang of jealousy when she imagined Josie staying with him when she and Johnny went to Florida together in November for their birthdays. Josie would enjoy something that she’d never had with Ted herself. Sailing in Florida had come about as a result of a mixture of factors: Kelly coming into money from her mother’s house was one; another was that, next year, Johnny would turn fifty, and she forty, and they wanted to make something of it. It was a rebellion, in a way.

Her thoughts turned to Carla Rigg again. It was Thursday afternoon, but she still had the mystery woman on her mind. The team had begun to forget the strange woman at Castlerigg, but she plagued Kelly and she discussed it with Johnny. No new leads had been forthcoming and her only other option was to release the photo of the man in the picture with her. But it was difficult to justify more resources.

The woman had gone.

For their run, they’d chosen a longer, more challenging route than usual because they both had time. The case of the mystery woman would now take its own course. There had been prank calls as always, and some interesting ones, and of course they all needed chasing, which used valuable man hours. The lab in Carlisle had come up with a DNA profile from the swab taken by the ambulance crew but it didn’t match any on their databases. Kelly tried to put it out of her head.

‘Do you mind Josie staying with Ted?’ she asked.

‘No, why should I? He’s like a grandad to her.’

‘I know, it’s sweet.’

‘You’re jealous!’

‘I am.’ She blushed and ran on.