Tanner nodded. ‘But one thing is becoming clear. Robert Bateman wasn’t universally popular among those who knew him. We know that Kenneth O’Connor had a serious grudge against him. And now there’s this Dean Foreman, whoever he is.’

‘It’s easy to make enemies when you’re in a financial shithole,’ James said. ‘Maybe that text he received from Foreman relates to some money issue between the two men.’

‘That’s quite possible, but you have to wonder how many other people there are who Bateman got on the wrong side of. From what I’ve learned about the state of his finances there could be quite a few.’

‘I’ll get someone to try and pull together a list of those he owes money to – we should have access to his bank accounts by now. His bank manager has confirmed he had a meeting with Bateman here in Kendal on Christmas Eve, at which he spelled out the dire state of the man’s finances, including a large overdraft. He said Bateman was down in the dumps when he left to go home.’

Tanner nodded then retreated to his office and James took a few moments to pull his thoughts together.

He turned instinctively to the whiteboards, and his eyes were drawn to the photos of the victims. They sparked a wave of heat that rose up his neck. Suddenly he was back at Oaktree Farm with all the blood and the cloying aroma of death.

It was obvious to him now that the crime scene was holding back more than it was offering up. The farmhouse itself was an enigma, and he couldn’t help wondering if echoes of the past had somehow had a bearing on the Christmas Eve carnage. The previous owners were killed and their daughter vanished, and then twenty-four years later the current owners were slain and their daughter died with them. Was it just a creepy coincidence, or was it something more?

He switched his gaze from the photos of the bodies to those of the cellar. The small concealed space, the peephole in the wall, the breadcrumbs on the floor, the bloodstain on the step. What the hell did it all mean? And was it connected to the killings?

He had never worked on a case that involved a perpetrator hiding inside the walls of a house, but he was aware that it had happened before.

One notorious case came to mind because it had featured in numerous true crime documentaries, podcasts and magazine features over the years.

James dredged from his memory the name of the man involved – Daniel LaPlante – so he went to his computer and typed it into Google. There was an abundance of information and he focused on part of an article that appeared several years ago in the online edition of an American newspaper.