The situation was indeed grim.

Stevens went on to say that the post-mortem on Daniel Curtis would not take place today because the pathologist and several members of her team were stuck in their homes.

‘Meanwhile, we’ve been to Daniel’s flat in Keswick,’ he added. ‘Nothing untoward was found and everything that was taken away, including laptop and documents, is being examined as we speak. We’ve also been going through the electoral roll for Kirkby Abbey and checking names against the criminal records database. I can send you a list of three men in the village who have form, one of them for grievous bodily harm against a woman four years ago. It’ll be up to you to find out if any of them had a score to settle with our victims.’

They got as much done as they could even though it was far from easy. Between eight and ten, James and DC Abbott visited the three men on the list that Stevens had sent over, but none of them stood out as likely suspects and they all had alibis for the nights on which the three murders were carried out.

They dropped in on Ron Curtis to see how he was, and found Janet Dyer was already at the bungalow. She had made him breakfast and was keeping him company.

After that, the two detectives met up again with Lorna Manning’s son, Chris Drake. His grief was being compounded by the fact that he hadn’t yet seen his mother’s body. He was also anxious to get back to his family in Southend.

James couldn’t offer him much comfort so he simply asked him to be patient. He also had to admit that they still didn’t know who had murdered his mother.

After another sandwich lunch James had to speak to a small delegation of villagers who had turned up at the hall to voice their concerns about the lack of progress with the investigation and the fact that they were all scared witless.

Gordon Carver was among them. The reporter recorded the exchange on his mobile and asked some questions himself, the first of which was, ‘Can you be absolutely sure that a fourth murder was not committed last night, Detective Walker?’

To which James replied, ‘We’ve had no reports of another body or of anyone missing. And despite the bad weather, my officers were on the streets throughout the night.’

He tried his best to reassure the crowd that the team were working flat out, but he was forced to concede that the storm had seriously impacted the investigation.

James ignored the few snippets of abuse that were hurled at him and he was glad when the villagers finally returned to their homes.

The afternoon was not much better for James and the team. Conditions did not improve and it became more difficult to get around.

It would have been true to say that the investigation had stalled, but James didn’t want to admit that, even to himself.