‘He invested in some more property in Harrogate and York and rented both of those out, he paid a whopping tax bill, and then the rest of it is all audited and spoken for in black and white. There are no dodgy payments to cryptic bank accounts, no notable transfers in the days before they went missing. He had no accounts with online betting companies. I mean, it’s possible that his gambling habit – if there even was one – may have been physical: he could have withdrawn cash, which is more difficult to track and trace, and then gone into an actual bricks-and-mortar bookies – but the nearest ones are in Kendal or Skipton and they’re thirty-odd miles away in opposite directions. If he was a gambler, why not just do it online?’

I looked at the article on the wall again. ‘So your gut reaction is –’

‘We probably shouldn’t dismiss it until we know for sure, but I reckon it’s pretty unlikely. And, anyway, for the past two and a half years there’s been no activity at all in Chris and Laura’s accounts and nothing in any of the others either. The cops have got alerts set up with all their banks, so if money had suddenly come out at any point, or if someone had gone into any of the accounts to recoup a debt, it would have been noted. But it hasn’t. These accounts have been dead for the entire time the nine of them have been gone.’

He handed me the bank statements and, for a while, we worked in silence, both of us inching our way through the nine missing persons reports.

Eventually, I said, ‘What was the weather like at the time?’

Healy held up a finger and worked his way back through the paperwork until he found what he was looking for. ‘Dry,’ he said. ‘On Halloween it had been clear skies in the day, minus temperatures at night, with frost. The day following that was the same; the 2nd of November was cloudy but no rain, and so was the 3rd.’ That was when Ross had arrived at the village. ‘It rained on the 4th of November.’

‘So there was no chance other footprints had been washed away before the police got there on the 3rd?’

‘Unlikely.’