‘I have a feeling I’ve met Mr Bateman,’ James replied. ‘But that’s about all. Kirkby Abbey is a small village and sooner or later you get to bump into everyone.’

‘I really feel for you and all the other villagers, guv,’ Stevens said. ‘It beggars belief that for the second Christmas running something like this should happen. I wonder how long it’ll be before some tabloid hack starts to describe Kirkby Abbey as that village in Cumbria where killers strike whenever it snows.’

It was a bad taste remark, but James let it pass. His mind was already leaping ahead to what horrors awaited them at Oaktree Farm.

Their destination was set in a remote location surrounded by snow-shrouded hills and moors.

A For Sale sign greeted them as they approached the turn off. The stone-built farmhouse and a couple of small outbuildings were set back only about a hundred yards from the road and dread swelled inside James as they drew close enough to see a collection of vehicles parked in the spacious yard in front of the house.

There was a police patrol car, an ambulance, a forensic van, a mud-splattered Land Rover and a smart looking Citroen C3. James hazarded a guess that the Land Rover belonged to the Batemans and the Citroen to the solicitor who had raised the alarm.

One of the uniformed officers who’d been first on the scene saw them arriving and got Stevens to park in a spot alongside a large, wooden barn. As they climbed out, DC Abbott held up her phone, and said, ‘Well at least there’s a strong mobile signal here. I wasn’t sure there would be.’

James had quickly learned that mobile reception was patchy across Cumbria, and it often proved frustrating, but things had thankfully improved since he’d moved up here.

The uniformed officer – Mike Winslow – had been doing the job a long time and James had never seen him looking so rattled. His face was ashen, drained of colour.

‘I take it you’ve been inside, Mike?’ he said.

PC Winslow nodded. ‘And it shook me up, guv, I can tell you. You probably already know that there are three bodies. My partner and I came straight back out after making sure none of them was alive and we were careful not to touch anything. But it’s a real mess in there.’

‘Any thoughts on when they might have died?’

‘I’d say they’ve been dead at least a couple of days. The smell is pretty bad and the blood has dried.’

‘Do we know who they are?’

‘According to the woman who called it in, a Miss Laura Sheldon, they’re the couple who lived here, Robert and Mary Bateman, and their daughter Charlotte.’

‘And where is Miss Sheldon now?’