‘Sounds to me like we’ve got him bang to rights,’ Tanner responded. ‘He had motive for wanting to hurt Robert Bateman, we know he went to the farm around the time of the killings to reinforce the threat he’d already made, and then he went on to lie to us. He’s also had plenty of time to cover his tracks by cleaning his car and dumping the shoes he was wearing. We can go ahead and charge him with murder, then wear him down until he fesses up to the rest of it.’

‘My advice is to hold fire on any charges, sir,’ James said. ‘There’s still too much we don’t know and that worries me.’

Tanner’s brow knitted. ‘Give me some examples.’

James shrugged. ‘The crime scene, for one thing. It might have been staged to make it look as though Robert killed himself after shooting his wife, but that doesn’t explain why their daughter was stabbed to death. It’s also hard to believe that Dean Foreman arrived at the house, did all that damage, and then left no trace of himself behind. And if he got there around nine and the Batemans were still alive when he arrived then surely the broken glass from the bottle Charlotte threw at Savage earlier would have been cleared up by then. But it wasn’t. And then there’s the cellar with the bloodstain on the stairs and the peephole in the wall. Plus, the shoeprints in the snow that Robert saw leading to the outside cellar door. It makes me think that there was someone else at the farm on Christmas Eve. Someone other than the Batemans and Neil Savage.’

‘Okay, I understand. So, tell me, who else is still in the frame?’

‘I haven’t entirely ruled out Savage,’ James said. ‘If he returned to the farm with his pal and they were high on drugs there’s a chance they let rip. And Kenneth O’Connor has got no one to verify his movements before he arrived at his brother’s place in Windermere around nine. And even then, we can’t be sure that his brother isn’t covering for him. Finally, there’s Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend, William Nash. She claimed he was stalking her and we’re in the process of getting a warrant to search his home in Kirkby Abbey. Any one of them might have played a part in what happened.’

Tanner shot his cuff and checked the time on his watch. ‘I’ve got a conference call with the Chief Constable in half an hour. I was hoping to tell her that we’ve solved the case. Instead, I’ll just say we’ve arrested three people and we’re in the process of questioning them.’

James then told Tanner about his meeting with Lisa Doyle in Ravenstonedale and how she went to Oaktree Farm twice to stage séances at Mary Bateman’s request.