‘Sorry, Tess. Thinking aloud. And then that bloody commando knife …’ Lucy tried to concentrate on the paperwork. ‘Home address was 27, Cedar Lane, Cotely Barn. Do they both still live there?’

‘Yeah. I checked with the Voters’ Roll.’

‘Excellent work, Tessa. I mean it … this is great.’

Payne beamed in response. ‘I’m guessing we’ve got a new lead?’

‘Well … we’ve got a lead on whoever attacked Sister Cassiopeia. And that’s something.’ Lucy lowered the documents. ‘How are you doing with the CCTV?’

‘A bit to go yet. Boring as hell.’

‘No hits, though?’

‘There’s no shortage of transit vans. The trouble is they’re all registered to legitimate companies.’

‘You’re making a list of them anyway?’

‘Sure. But there are none running under dummy plates. None that I’ve spotted. And I’ve got lots more footage to look through yet.’

‘Because now that Malcolm Peabody’s off sick, someone’s going to have to do the mission halls and shelters as well.’

For all the enthusiasm she wanted to project in the presence of her idol, Payne looked wearied simply by the prospect of this.

‘Sorry, babes,’ Lucy said. ‘But we’re all pulled out.’

Payne nodded. ‘Least it’ll get me out the office.’

‘Plus, I’ll be able to help you. For the meantime, though, get on with the flicks.’ Lucy folded the print-outs. ‘I’ll check out the Torgau situation.’

Payne wandered back into the DO, while Lucy went out to the car park, jumped onto her bike and hit the streets. She already had more than enough to arrest this Alyssa Torgau, but that would not have been the clever way to do it. Circumstantial evidence, very circumstantial, connected the girl – and maybe her father, because someone had been driving that van she escaped in – to the other abductions, and that in its turn connected them – possibly, maybe – to the dog carcasses on the landfill, which – possibly, maybe – connected them to the double strangulation on the Aggies, which – also possibly, maybe – connected them to the shooting of Frank McCracken.

That was an awful lot of possibles and maybes to use as a basis for going crashing in. So the first thing to do was check out the lie of the land at Cedar Lane. She would head over there now, but not on her Ducati, because that would likely attract interest in a quiet neighbourhood. Instead, she went first to her mother’s terraced house in Saltbridge, where she’d left her Jimny the previous day.