Diane Fry happened to be at Divisional Headquarters in West Street when the call came in. As soon as DI Hitchens appeared in the door of the CID room, she knew that something had happened. There was no mistaking that air of excitement that came when there had at last been a breakthrough in a frustrating case.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Another woman attacked,’ said Hitchens. ‘Near Ringham.’

Fry stood up, ready to go. ‘Dead?’

‘Oh no,’ said Hitchens, with the first hint of a smile. ‘This one’s very much alive. And shouting the place down.’

E Division’s problem had suddenly become a hot potato that nobody wanted. For the meeting later that morning, Detective Superintendent Prince made an appearance, looking like a man who had been reminded by the Assistant Chief Constable that he was supposed to be in charge.

Ben Cooper saw that even Owen Fox and Mark Roper were there. Owen looked uncomfortable in the stifling atmosphere. The heating had been turned up for the winter, but there were too many people in the room and there was no air conditioning. Away from the open air, Owen seemed out of his element. He was a slow, quietly-spoken middle-aged man among a crowd of younger people who were much noisier, more self-confident and aggressive. His untidy hair and beard made him look his age.

Also, Cooper now realized that it was only Owen’s fleece jacket that was red. The jacket was so distinctive that he hadn’t really noticed the rest of the Ranger’s uniform before. Apart from the red fleece, everything else that he wore was grey – the shirt, the trousers, the sweater. Without the jacket, the Ranger would be a grey man.

‘Well, if this was our assailant again, he made a big mistake,’ said Tailby, with more than a trace of satisfaction. ‘This time the woman he chose turned out not to be alone. If this lady, Karen Tavisker, had not walked on ahead when her friend stopped to rest, he would have realized there were two of them. I believe he would have left them alone and gone elsewhere. We have the lack of fitness of a thirty-five-year-old woman to thank for this breakthrough.’

Tailby pointed to the map of the Ringham area showing the sites of the previous attacks. He indicated a path above the village of Ringham Lees, which disappeared into a patch of green representing woodland before emerging among grey angular shapes that meant rocks.

‘Karen Tavisker wanted to reach the top of Ringham Edge,’ he said. ‘But the path was too steep for her friend, Marilyn Robb. She stopped to rest about here while Tavisker went on. We believe our man was waiting in the trees. He must have thought Tavisker was alone, but he got a shock. Robb was only a few yards away. Everything went wrong for him at that point.’

‘Did they both see him?’ asked Cooper.