James said he had checked in at the village shop and discovered that those same cards were in stock and quite a few packages had already been sold.

‘Back to the timeline,’ he continued. ‘On Saturday night, Charlie Jenkins was murdered and his body was found in the field on Sunday morning. Suspicion fell initially on his wife Sonia, and the carer Janet Dyer. Charlie had an affair with Janet and she recently told one of the elderly gentlemen in her care, Ron Curtis. He then told someone else and it got back to Sonia who went apeshit, partly because it wasn’t Charlie’s first affair.’

James told the team how Charlie then confronted both Janet and Ron.

‘So that was where we were up to when the postman found Lorna Manning’s body this morning,’ he said. ‘The victim received two knife wounds just as Charlie Jenkins did and the pathologist suspects the same knife was used. But on Lorna’s body the killer left another card. The message inside was short and to the point. It read: Two down, ten to go. Merry Christmas to the people of Kirkby Abbey.’

James paused for a few moments to let this sink in and several of the officers let out audible gasps.

‘This is why we’re now taking the threat deadly seriously and treating it as a single investigation,’ he added.

James held up the framed photo of Lorna Manning and explained how it was taken from her home and placed on Nadia Patel’s grave. He said they had questioned Keith Patel a second time and he claimed to have no knowledge of the photo or how it got there.

‘So there are a whole bunch of questions that need answering,’ he went on. ‘And one of them is how much of what we’ve just talked about do we make public.’

At this point, DCI Tanner spoke up, saying that the briefing needed to be paused for a short time so that he could respond to a text he’d just received from the Chief Constable.

James was happy with that for two reasons. Firstly, it gave him the opportunity to find out if any useful information had resulted from the house-to-house in Willow Road.

Secondly, it allowed him time to work out exactly how he was going to point the finger of suspicion at one of his own relatives.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Annie was finding it hard to get through the day. It felt like she was caught up in an emotional whirlwind. Fear, grief and guilt were raising goose bumps on her flesh and causing her stomach to knot like a ball of twine.

She was terrified that more murders were going to be committed. Her heart was in pieces over what had happened to Charlie and Lorna. And she was feeling bad for allowing the irrational part of her brain to latch onto the possibility that her uncle might have been responsible.

She had spent an hour at the school with some of her shell-shocked colleagues. Flowers, tributes and cards had already started arriving. Tears flowed and fears were expressed. Everyone was in an awful state.