The priest compressed his lips tightly together and nodded.

‘I will pray that you’re right about that, Detective Walker. But if you’re not then I just hope you are able to apprehend this person before he harms anyone.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Annie was waiting for James to call her after his visit to the church. They were hoping to meet up so they could have a drink and some lunch together, and she was eager to hear if Father Silver knew or suspected who had sent him the threatening card.

She was still reeling from the shock of it. James, typically, had tried to play it down, his face remaining firm and stoic as he’d relayed what the priest had told him over the phone.

But Annie could tell from the look in his eyes that it had rattled him. It was the same look that had been there after the brick was hurled through the window of their home in Tottenham.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. They had moved to Cumbria so that they could feel safe and secure. But suddenly a nagging sense of dread had been planted in her stomach, and she found it hard to think about anything other than the dead partridge and those ominous messages.

She did her best to try to take her mind off it by keeping busy. After tidying the kitchen, she finished off putting up the decorations ready for when James’s family arrived en masse on Christmas Eve.

But she was already starting to wonder if they should even come now. God only knew what was going to happen during the next seven days.

She found herself looking at the framed photos on the mantlepiece. There was one of her and James on their wedding day, which took place at a fancy hotel in Kent. Dozens of pictures were taken that day, but this one of them standing either side of the cake was her favourite. They were smiling at each other, and it was clear for all to see that they were so happy and very much in love.

James was a fine figure of a man at the best of times, tall and lean with thick brown hair, but on that day he’d looked really scrumptious in his black Moss Bros. morning suit and waistcoat.

The photo next to it was the last one taken of her parents together. It was at the start of a charity hike on Wild Boar Fell which raised £3,000 for Save The Children. Two months later her dad collapsed and died of a heart attack and her mum never went hiking again.

Guilt always reared its ugly head whenever Annie thought about her father. At the time of his death when she was a teenager, she hadn’t been on good terms with him because he had wrecked her relationship with the man she had fallen in love with.

His name was Daniel Curtis and he was a tour guide who lived with his parents in Kirkby Abbey. She’d met him on an organised day trip to the Lake District with some of her friends. He was good-looking and charming, and she was made up when he’d asked for her phone number.