She slowly got out of the car, trying to delay the inevitable. There it was: the next body part – an arm. Anna stood still in front of it, the bag carrying the camera in her hand. Damn it. Only one more part to go. Or that was the general consensus anyway. The torso would be the final piece, and Anna guessed it would be tomorrow’s offering. There was one last chance to get the perpetrator on camera.

‘Mum!’ Anna called out as she walked through the door. ‘Mum?’

Anna pushed through the lounge door, but there was no sign of Muriel. Popping the bag on the dining room table, Anna walked out into the back garden, calling as she went. A door banged.

‘Here!’ Muriel shouted, and Anna watched as she emerged from Sandie’s back door. Finally, she’d ventured in to see her neighbour, and typically that had been when the arm had been attached to the door. ‘You took your time,’ she said, her words cutting.

‘Sorry, it wasn’t easy to find a shop in Bovey that sold the type of camera I wanted. It had to be one with night vision.’

‘You managed to get one, though?’ Muriel closed the gate that separated hers and Sandie’s houses and ambled to the back door. She was more hunched than she’d appeared before: her shoulders rounded, her spine curved. She looked so much older than sixty-five – Anna had seen sprightlier ninety-year-olds. It was like she was shrinking, disappearing further inside herself with each new day.

‘Yes. And we got another doll part, too.’

Muriel’s face blanched. ‘I thought we’d got away with it today.’

‘Yes, me too. Didn’t you hear anything?’

‘No.’ Muriel shook her head, sighing. ‘Nothing. Sandie and I were in the kitchen. If we’d been in the lounge I might’ve. Right, so what’s this one got to say?’

‘Let’s look, shall we?’

They both sat at the table, Anna with the skewer poised ready.

‘Go on, then,’ Muriel said. Anna dug out the piece of paper:

SOMEONE HAS TO CONFESS. NOW! YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Muriel muttered something under her breath and rose from her chair. Without looking at Anna she walked into the lounge. Anna sat for a while, thinking.

Someone has to confess. Now. Your time is running out. What was going to happen when the undisclosed time ran out? That was the question. If the person didn’t confess, what were they going to do about it? There couldn’t be enough evidence of wrongdoing or surely they’d be taking it to the police, not terrorising her mother. They had to be bluffing, or they were about to take matters into their own hands and dish out what they believed to be justice. If this person was so convinced Billy Cawley was wrongly convicted, how far were they willing to go to clear his name? If it was Billy himself behind it – Anna would bet he’d go quite far.

But maybe that wasn’t the intention.