‘Yes, or something like that.’ She went to pick up her cup but changed her mind again the moment her bottom lip started to throb again. ‘It fits with the words left on the glasses box too. Now You See Me is perhaps a message from some who feels they haven’t been noticed. Someone who wants to be seen. Probably a child who was neglected by their parents.’

‘Like Andrew Wade?’ Palmer didn’t believe he was the one responsible for the killings even if he did believe himself to be a neglected offspring.

‘Someone like him,’ Elly suggested, then sucked on her lip in an attempt to soothe it.

‘It’s not a bad theory.’ Palmer sat back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘But until we have a suspect it is only that – a theory. Piece of advice.’ He lent in. ‘I wouldn’t run it past the DCI just yet. He’s not that fond of theories.’

‘In all honesty, sir, it is the only thing I’ve come up with. I’ve been through the files and I can’t see anything else that links the victims.’ She was exasperated. ‘I can’t find something that isn’t there.’

‘Perhaps we should speak to Andrew Wade again,’ Palmer said giving some serious thought to her theory. ‘I’ll run it by Barrett. Good work.’ He stood and patted her shoulder, letting his hand lingering there just a second or two longer than it should have done.

Chapter 18

8.30am Friday 20th December

Veronica had not slept properly since the news of Dennis’s murder. It wasn’t surprising that she lay in bed at night crying, with awful images of her butchered husband roaming around her head. She wanted it all to go away. She wanted it all to have been a nightmare. She wanted her husband back.

Sitting at the kitchen table in the gloom, nursing a now cold cup of tea, she stared out of the window at a plucky robin who was sifting through the snow looking for its breakfast. Veronica found herself wondering how the birds never seemed to get cold feet. Perhaps they didn’t feel things in the way people did. She wished for a moment she could be like the robin.

The holly bush that grew towards the back of the garden was all but bare of its berries. The birds had taken most of them. Veronica remembered happier times when she would pick the leaves and make a wreath for the front door. There was no wreath on the Wade’s front door this year. She’d been planning to make it after returning from Somerset but no longer had any desire to. With her husband dead and her son in prison, Veronica faced a bleak future alone.