‘Or you could have a simple case of burying the bodies,’ Grant said. ‘Out of sight, out of mind. Plenty of killers have employed that method over the years, as I’m sure you’ll know.’

‘Like Fred and Rose West,’ Dani said. ‘And the Moors Murderers.’

‘Two duos, I might add, coming back to the earlier point. In both those cases, the murders were covered up to varying degrees by burying the bodies. In the case of the Moors Murderers, at least one of the victims’ bodies still hasn’t been found, decades later, such is the remoteness of the moors where Brady buried the corpses.’

The room fell silent and Dani realised she was beginning to feel queasy with all the talk of death and corpses and sadistic murderers.

‘I’m sure you realise that this is an area I take great interest in, but from your point of view it’s all just hypothetical,’ Grant said. ‘I’m really not sure at this stage, unless you have something, some evidence of a crime – other than Reeve and Natalya of course – how any of this can help you with your case.’

‘Actually it’s all helping,’ Dani said. ‘Knowledge is power, as they say.’

There was a knock on the door and Dani spun around to see Mary standing there. She had a slight look of disquiet on her face.

How long had she been there for?

‘Your tea’s nearly ready,’ she said. ‘Annie needs to eat before she goes to dance class.’

‘Oh, right. Dani—’

‘It’s fine,’ Dani said, getting to her feet. ‘That’s enough talk of the dead for one day. Thank you for speaking to me at such short notice.’

‘That’s really no problem at all,’ Grant said. ‘I want to help you here in any way that I can.’

‘It was nice to see you again, Detective,’ Mary said, before turning and heading off once more.

Grant got up from his chair and Dani followed him out into the hallway.

‘You have a beautiful home,’ Dani said, looking around the grand space.

‘Thank you. It’ll soon be a hundred years old. We’ve been here a long time ourselves now, over fifteen years. Since Annie was just a baby. It feels a bit big with the three of us. When Annie leaves I’m really not sure what we’ll do.’

Dani looked around. Adjacent to the open door leading into the kitchen was a plain-looking door. It caught Dani’s eye because it had a small padlock clasped over an outer bolt.

‘Is that where you keep the dead bodies then?’ Dani joked.

‘What?’

Dani nodded over to the locked door.

‘Oh, ha, yeah. The basement. No. You won’t find any dead bodies down there. Dead bodies don’t need locking in. That’s trying to keep the monsters out.’

‘Monsters?’