‘Sounds kind of silly now. There was a massive storm a few years ago that blew out the single slit window down there. The noise of the wind whistling through was horrendous. Naturally Ethan told Annie that monsters lived down there.’

‘As brothers tend to do,’ Dani said.

‘Indeed. The only solution was to put the lock on, to show Annie the house was still safe. I’m not sure she’s ever been down there since. We don’t need the lock anymore, of course. Just never got around to taking it off.’

Dani felt her phone vibrating and she apologised and took it out of her pocket. She recognised the number from earlier in the day.

‘I really should take this,’ Dani said. ‘Thanks for your time.’

‘Of course. Let me show you to the door.’

She answered the phone as Grant walked over with her. He opened the door, Dani smiled at him then headed out.

Two hours later, with the clouds finally parting to reveal the sun just moving down below the tree line in front of her, Dani was sitting on a bench on the leafy university campus looking out across emerald fields that were cluttered with students playing impromptu games of football, rugby and frisbee.

‘Like I told the other detectives, I guess I don’t really know her that well.’ Georgia Draper said.

Nineteen years old, with dyed black hair and piercing eyes, Georgia was supposedly one of Jessica Bradford’s closest friends at university, but the girls had only known each other a few short months.

‘At first I thought maybe she’d just gone home for some reason. Then I noticed those Facebook posts.’

‘And who’s this guy she’s gone with?’

Georgia shrugged. ‘I’ve really no idea. She never mentioned him to me before.’

‘And you’ve still not seen or heard from her directly?’

‘Not that I can remember.’

The way Jason had relayed the story earlier in the day made it sound like all was fine and dandy. But Dani was far from agreeing.

‘What do you know of Professor Grant?’ Dani asked.

Georgia shrugged. ‘Never talked to him before. He’s one of our lecturers. Jess was way more into that stuff than me.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I only took that module because she was. I couldn’t really care less. It’s all a bit… weird, isn’t it?’

‘Murder? Yes I guess so.’

‘But Jess is really into it. She’s got the professor’s book and everything. It was written before we were even born, but she’s well into it. Even went to talk to him about it a couple of times.’

‘Sorry?’

‘What?’

‘Jess did what?’

‘She was talking to Professor Grant. Went to his office one day so they could discuss killers. How weird is that?’

‘So they knew each other?’