‘Liaise with the team in Penrith and get them to bring him down here for questioning,’ James said. ‘Or better still, go there yourself. It’ll only take half an hour. Don’t forget to check his shoes. And make sure you have backup. We’ve no idea what to expect from the guy.’

Next up was DC Abbott. She had obtained an address for Heather Redgrave.

‘She lives here in town,’ Abbott said. ‘I rang her number but her mother answered and said Heather had left her phone behind while she went out for a run. She’s expecting her back in about twenty minutes and I told her we’d be sending someone around to talk to her about Charlotte. The woman confirmed that Heather and Charlotte were friends.’

‘And had Heather heard the news?’ James asked.

‘Apparently so, which is why she didn’t go to work today. She’s very upset and went for a run to clear her head.’

‘Well, fingers crossed she can tell us stuff about Charlotte that we don’t already know,’ James said. ‘You and I will pay her a visit this morning. And we’ll also drop in on the shop where Charlotte worked. Hopefully it will be open today.

‘Do we have an update on Neil Savage?’ James asked.

‘His phone still isn’t transmitting a signal and though we’ve traced a number of his friends they all claim not to know where he is,’ DC Wendy Mitchell said. ‘The forensic sweep of his flat is complete though and there’s an unmarked pool car outside the block keeping an eye out for him.’

‘The Constabulary has agreed to stage a press conference at eleven. I’ll front it so that you can crack on,’ DCI Tanner said to James. ‘We can agree on what should and shouldn’t be said before you go out.’

Tony Coppell shared the very latest from forensics.

‘My team at the farm is back to full strength and they’re now working their way through the barn and outbuildings as well as the house. I can also confirm that it was indeed Neil Savage’s Peugeot that was involved in the collision close to Oaktree Farm on Christmas Eve,’ he said. ‘We matched paint from the Peugeot to paint found on the rear bodywork of the other car.’

‘Well that’s good to know,’ James said. ‘But now we need to find out what happened following the shunt and whether Savage drove back to the farm after receiving the angry text message from Charlotte.’

‘I can’t help you with that,’ Coppell said. ‘But what I can tell you is that no blood was found in the footwell of Savage’s car or on the pedals. That could either mean he wasn’t the one who walked through the blood or the soles of his shoes were wiped clean by the snow.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE