‘That’s your call and I won’t stop you. But tread softly. Keegan knows the rules of play better than anyone and I don’t want this blowing up in our faces.’

‘I assure you it won’t, sir,’ James said.

After a pause, Tanner said, ‘So where do we go from here?’

‘We need to think about mounting a door-to-door across the entire village,’ James said. ‘Canvas as many people as we can. I find it hard to believe that the killer has been moving around unseen or that no one has noticed something out of kilter. And to make it harder for him to strike again we could have more overnight patrols and perhaps even put a curfew in place.’

‘Steady on, Detective. You need to appreciate that, unlike in London, we don’t have unlimited people and resources to draw on. And even for a high-priority case like this I’m not sure it would be right to impose a curfew. It’ll have to be managed, and even in a village the size of Kirkby Abbey that would be hugely problematic. And let’s not forget that we’re preparing for the blizzards that are about to smash into this part of the country. You may not realise it because you haven’t been with us long, but they put a huge strain on manpower.’

‘But what if there’s another murder, sir?’ James said.

‘Well, that’s why you’re there, Detective – to make sure there isn’t. Find our killer and stop him running rings around us. In the meantime, I’ll reassess the staff situation, and if I can beef up numbers on the team I will. That’s a promise.’

James came away from the conversation only slightly reassured. But he wasn’t going to let that distract him from what had to be done. After all, Tanner’s reaction hadn’t come as a great surprise. The longer the case went on, the more the pressure on him would grow.

And James did appreciate the points he had raised. The number of officers and amount of resources to commit to an investigation always become an issue at some point in the process for every force in the country. Tanner had been right to point out that imposing a controversial measure such as a curfew could create all kinds of problems. One would be the question of how long to leave it in place. Another would be what penalty to impose on those who flouted it.

The day was slipping away at a rate of knots so James decided to hold another briefing. This time he got someone to set up a video link with the team in Kendal.

There was a lot to discuss and he began by asking DS Stevens what progress they had made at their end.

‘I can tell you that we’ve heard back from the handwriting expert who was asked to analyse the messages in the Christmas cards,’ he said. ‘He’s adamant that they were all written by the same person. We already assumed that, but at least this provides confirmation.