‘It was Fielding. She’s picking me up in twenty.’ This wasn’t the time to tell Elinor. It wasn’t fair to expect her to go through breakfast with Torin hugging that terrible knowledge to herself. And it wasn’t right to tell Torin anything until his mother’s ID was confirmed.

‘What’s happened?’ Elinor was alert now. She knew the ways of her lover’s job too well.

‘I think it’s a break in the Nadia Wilkowa case.’ Which was sort of true. Paula stood up, then bent to kiss Elinor. ‘See you later.’

She barely made it out the front door in time, but she’d managed to be waiting for Fielding. To her surprise, her boss had handed her a cardboard cup of coffee when she climbed into the car. ‘The body’s up on the moors. I don’t suppose there will be catering,’ Fielding said drily.

‘What have we got?’ It was easier to listen than to talk ahead of her first coffee. And Fielding definitely seemed to be a morning person.

She leaned through the gap between the front seats so she could more easily talk to Paula in the rear. ‘If I had a fiver for every dog walker who finds a body, I’d be sunning myself on a yacht in the Caribbean. Local farm manager out with his lurchers didn’t make it past the car park. The body was stashed behind a stone rubbish container. West Yorkshire didn’t specify whether it’s a primary scene or a body dump. She’s a match for Nadia Wilkowa. Battered unrecognisable, badly beaten, genitals glued shut.’ She paused to take a swig from a water bottle. ‘But that’s not why they called us.’

‘Why did they call us?’

’Her clothes and bag were dumped at the site, same as Nadia. In this case, they were stuffed in the rubbish bin. When they ran her ID through the computer, the misper alert came up. They rang John Okeke – he’s down as the point of contact. Soon as he heard the details, he told their SIO to call me. So here we are.’

‘But Nadia was kept for three weeks before he killed her. Bev’s not even been gone three days. That’s a hell of a difference.’

‘The key elements of the MO are the same, McIntyre. There’s more that links them than distinguishes them.’

‘Her son’s only fourteen,’ Paula said.

‘It’s going to be rough on him,’ Fielding acknowledged, then moved right along. Her face gave no clue whether she couldn’t bear the thought or simply didn’t much care. ‘What was she like, Beverley McAndrew?’

‘Bev,’ Paula corrected her automatically. ‘I didn’t know her that well – my partner, Elinor, knew her better than me. They both work at Bradfield Cross.’