When a man was blood tested his fingerprints were taken also. If he had a record then the fingerprints were matched. It was another way of confirming their alibis. If a man had no criminal file then his passport or some other form of identification was necessary. A driving licence was adequate, but something with a picture on was much more solid. This is what was taking all the time. Not enough manpower to keep abreast of the mounting names. Still, it was better than nothing and much better than they’d had before.

Willis picked up yet another file. He was dealing with the known sex offenders. Due to a delay in the computer system, they had only just received all the names of sex offenders in the area who had been tried and convicted in other parts of the country. These were known as ‘floaters’, passing through on their way to another prison sentence. They were the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal world, hated by police and villains alike. The pile was in alphabetical order and Willis picked up the first file.

Name: Desmond Addamson.

Willis flicked through the file: rape, arson and flashing, along with robbery with violence. He had turned up in Grantley in the middle of January. Too late for the first murders. He picked up the phone. The man had better be checked out anyway. He would start with his probation officer. As he picked up the phone, he knocked the pile of files from his desk. He dropped the phone and tried to save them. Too late.

The files landed with a muted thud and papers were strewn everywhere. A small cheer went up from the others in the room and Willis smiled good-naturedly as he bent down to scoop up the papers. He would be there for ages putting all the papers back in their proper folders. He placed the last lot on the desk and there, staring up at him, was George Markham’s face. Younger, with browner, thicker hair, but unmistakably George Markham.

Willis glanced at the photo without seeing it.

George had had a nice cup of tea and was now in the process of thinking how to get Elaine up into the loft. He had thought long and hard about where to put her and then it had come to him in a flash of inspiration. There was only one problem: Elaine was big. How was he to get her up there?

The answer was so cunning that he grinned with satisfaction. He was clever all right.

He stood up and looked at Elaine’s body, wrapped in the incongruous plastic bags.

‘I’m off out, dear, I won’t be long.’

He went into the hall and put on his good overcoat. Then, carefully locking up, he drove to Grantley shopping centre, parked his car in the multi-storey car park and walked through the town centre to a small plant hire shop.