‘Because whenever I try and think about those two, I end up tying myself in knots. Andy Bishop couldn’t have killed Stefan or Iqbal, he was out of the country at the time of both deaths. So he’s in the clear. Even though he has a motive the size of a barn door to want Iqbal dead. And Elliot couldn’t have killed Stefan either, even though he’d hated him for years for stealing a Rothko painting from him. Not unless Elliot somehow killed Stefan before choir practice and the gunshot I heard from the river that night just after 8 p.m. was staged for my benefit. Which doesn’t sound very likely, if you ask me. And as for why Elliot would want to kill Iqbal Kassam or Liz Curtis, well, that’s equally as impossible to imagine. And that’s putting aside the fact that Elliot was at an online auction when Liz was killed, so he can’t have killed her anyway.’

‘But it has to be one or other of them,’ Becks said.

‘I’d agree with you there,’ Judith said. ‘Their fingerprints are all over the murders. Metaphorically at least.’

‘Maybe someone’s setting them up?’ Suzie said.

‘Although that’s not true for Liz Curtis, is it?’ Becks said to Judith, holding up her folder.

‘What’s that?’ Judith asked.

‘We may be able to find connections between Andy Bishop and Iqbal, and Elliot Howard and Stefan, but we’ve got nothing yet that suggests any kind of a link between either man and Liz Curtis. Have we?’

‘Which is my point exactly,’ Judith agreed. ‘We’re only guessing when it comes to Andy Bishop and Elliot Howard. Whereas we aren’t when we come to the victims. We know they were killed. We know their deaths are related. So I suggest we try to find out what that link is.’

‘There isn’t one!’ Suzie said. ‘Nothing links a local art dealer, a taxi driver and the owner of a rowing centre.’

‘Nonsense. Something links them. Or they wouldn’t have been killed. We simply have to discover what it is.’

‘It’s funny you should say that,’ Becks said, indicating a report in her file. ‘I’ve got a list of all of the clients who Iqbal had in his taxi here. And so you know, he never drove Elliot Howard. Not once. It’s the same for Andy Bishop. And Stefan Dunwoody, for that matter. But he did drive Liz Curtis. Two weeks before she died. It cost fifteen pounds.’