‘Deadly serious. Forget Elliot Howard, for all of his bonfire of the vanities. Whatever beef he had with Stefan has nothing to do with anything, because Andy Bishop’s our killer. Which makes sense, when you think about the medallions he left with each body. As I told you, “Faith”, “Hope” and “Charity” are the Masonic virtues, and I’d be very surprised if Mr Bishop attained his position of prominence as a local solicitor without joining the funny-handshake brigade. What’s more, he let slip to Becks that not only had Stefan been shot, but he knew an antique gun had been used. So how could he have known that if he weren’t the killer? You need to arrest him. At once.’

‘I’m impressed. Really, I am. The only problem is, Andy Bishop didn’t kill Iqbal Kassam.’

‘But he must have done. I’ve just explained.’

‘He didn’t. You see, he wasn’t in the country when Iqbal was killed. He was in Malta.’

Judith wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

‘Say that again?’

‘After you told me about him, I got my team to check him out. And according to both the UK Borders Agency and the Maltese Department of Immigration, Andy Bishop was at the end of his annual two-week holiday when Iqbal Kassam was murdered. Which means he was also in Malta when Stefan Dunwoody was killed.’

‘He was on a two-week holiday throughout all of this?’

‘I’m sorry, Judith, but he was about a thousand miles away at the time. There’s no way he could be the killer.’

Judith was rendered speechless. If Andy wasn’t even in the country for the first two murders, then it didn’t matter how much of a motive he had to kill Iqbal, he didn’t do it. As for the murder of Liz Curtis, it was still possible that he’d killed her, if he’d acted swiftly before arriving at his place of work that morning, but if he hadn’t carried out the first two murders, then why on earth would he have carried out the third? Especially when they’d not been able to find a link between him and Liz Curtis.

Judith realised they were back to square one. They’d already ruled out Elliot Howard, and now they’d have to rule out Andy Bishop. And if neither of them had done it, then who on earth had killed Stefan Dunwoody, Iqbal Kassam and Liz Curtis?

And why? What on earth was the link between the three victims that meant they had to die?

Chapter 31