‘There’s no sign of Violet Armstrong,’ I said. ‘We’re now extremely concerned about her.’

‘But are you okay?’ Jai said.

I gave him a robust smile. ‘I’m fine. I’ve passed on as much info as I could about the men. But they were all in balaclavas and were wearing leather gloves.’ How calm and tough I must have sounded. How unaffected by it all. But inside I was shaking. Nothing felt solid. If someone touched me lightly, I’d fall down. To admit this, to walk away from the briefing and let someone else take over for a few moments, seemed impossible to me.

‘Well, if you’re sure you’re all right,’ Jai said. ‘It sounded nasty.’

The feeling subsided. I was okay. ‘Honestly, I’m fine.’

Jai shrugged. I wondered if he could see through the shell to shaky-me. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’s not looking so great for Violet. We’ve had confirmation it was her blood and hair in the pigs’ trough.’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Last night Fiona and I saw what twenty young pigs can do to a fifty-kilo sheep, so they could have, in theory, eaten a girl’s body.’

Shocked murmuring went round the room in a wave and drowned out me saying, ‘I said “in theory”! But, okay, we’re now looking at the serious possibility that Violet was killed that night at the abattoir, and her body was fed to the pigs and/or put in with the missing abattoir waste.’

Craig expanded his cheeks and then let the air out with a puff. ‘Wow.’

Sick soul that I am, the talk of death was making me feel better. ‘We’re obviously looking for her blood on the abattoir equipment and in other areas,’ I said. ‘For the pigs to leave so little mess, whoever did it would have had to … chop her up.’

‘Ouch,’ Jai said. Helpfully.

‘We’ve got back the paternity results for Daniel Twigg,’ Fiona said. ‘He’s not Violet’s father.’

I felt a small jolt of relief. I wasn’t sure why, given that we wanted to know who Violet’s father was.

‘Since Gary Finchley refused to take the test,’ Fiona said, ‘I think our working assumption should be that it’s him.’

‘Interesting,’ Jai said. ‘I wonder if he knows. Maybe not – otherwise he wouldn’t have made it so obvious that he fancied her.’

‘We are talking about the wilds of Derbyshire here,’ I said. ‘But I’m inclined to agree. Let’s have another good look at Gary. I don’t believe his alibi.’

‘The Animal Vigilantes are the no-brainer suspects,’ Craig said. ‘We need to push them harder. What about that Leona woman?’

‘She has a strong alibi,’ I said. ‘She was spotted on CCTV and her friend confirms she was with him. It’s not watertight, but it’s solid and we’ve got nothing to suggest she was at the abattoir.’