‘Very well.’ Jane was secretly pleased she had a platform. ‘I’ll begin.’ Worried about Aiden’s pint glass falling, despite the fact it was a good few inches from the edge, she pushed it into the centre of the table. ‘We have all been upset by the recent events at the bookshop.’

‘And everything that has happened since,’ Marcus gently reminded her, not wanting the brutal murder of Wendy Matlock to be brushed under the carpet.

‘Yes, and the rest.’

‘Yes,’ Myleene chirped up with her broad Cambridgeshire accident. ‘Did you all see that stuff on the Internet?’

The group shook their heads.

‘Well, today…’ She leant in, fiddling with the blond plait which fell across her shoulder. ‘I was on Facebook, you know just messaging friends and the like, and it came up on my news feed.’ Myleene’s big blue eyes looked like glass marbles, reflecting the street light from the lamp outside the window. ‘Some local paper guy got sent some human fingers in the post.’ She sat back triumphantly, looking almost titillated by the revelation.

‘My dear,’ Marcus said with a fake smile, ‘what has that got to do with this?’

‘Oh yeah, well the fingers were taken from the people being killed round here.’

It took Marcus a moment or two for the words to sink in.

‘You mean Dennis?’ The horror was tattooed on his face.

‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. The paper said there were three fingers in a box or something. Grim huh?’

The table remained silent for a few moments.

‘Some sicko is really having a field day.’ Aiden frowned.

‘That’s bad,’ Amber piped up. Until then, she’d only spoken to Myleene.

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ Myleene said taking a gulp of her coke.

‘Three fingers?’ Aiden asked. ‘I thought only two people had died?’

‘No one died,’ Marcus suddenly hissed, ‘they were murdered.’

‘Blimey.’ Steven picked up his pint and drained the dregs. ‘Poor old Dennis.’

‘I’d say,’ said Aiden nodding in agreement.

‘This isn’t right, talking about these people like this. We should leave the police to their job and concentrate on ours for a moment.’ Jane’s lack of humanity stunned the table.

‘Right, so back to business then?’ Steven said with a smirk.

‘I don’t like your tone.’ Jane turned to him with a cold stare.

‘And I don’t much like yours.’ Marcus stroked the stem on his wine glass and looked at Jane.

‘Gossiping about the gruesome details of the murders won’t get us anywhere. I can’t stand to think about it. We’d be better off talking about the future of our employment, which was the entire reason I arranged this meeting.’ Jane still appeared unmoved by the discovery.

‘Fine,’ Aiden sighed, ‘let’s get on with it. Say what you want to say Jane.’