‘Aha. Here it is.’ Halliday slammed a book down on the table. Beloved, by someone called Toni Morrison. Sellers had never heard of it. ‘Someone sent me this anonymously. If it was just the book, I’d be clueless, but it was accompanied by a very bizarre letter-cum-passive-aggressive-death threat that makes me wonder if I might know who sent it. I could be wrong, but I think it was him. Billy.’

‘Him or her,’ said Sellers. ‘Billy might be a woman. Don’t let the name mislead you.’

‘Oh, yes, how silly of me!’ Halliday sneered. ‘I forgot how keen men always are to cast a woman in the leading role when that role is “villain who needs punishing”. Do you have any idea how few serial killers are women?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Sellers. ‘Billy might be one of the few. If she is and we only allow ourselves to suspect men, we’ll never catch her, will we?’

‘How convenient. When the statistics turn against you, suddenly statistics no longer matter.’ Halliday sighed. ‘Ugh, look – saving you from your festering bigotry isn’t my job or responsibility. I’m here to do my bit to save women’s lives, so here it is – take it. I think it’s from the man … sorry, the male animal you’re calling Billy. Which would make it a significant clue.’ She pushed the book across the table at Sellers. ‘Letter’s inside the front cover. And if you catch him thanks to me, I want proper credit. Men have been taking credit for women’s achievements since the dawn of time. You might have thought we were planning to put up with that forever. Well, here’s a heads-up: we’re not.’

‘It’s not something I’ve thought about at all,’ Sellers said truthfully.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Halliday. ‘Because you don’t see women as fully human.’

Neil Dunning stood up and moved to the front of the room to talk about Linzi Birrell’s murder. He did it in a ‘This is how it’s done’ way, awarding himself points as he went, no doubt. Simon’s loathing for him intensified.

‘Linzi Birrell, twenty-three, address 1c, 143 Klessen Road, Combingham,’ said Dunning. ‘Billy’s first victim. I’ll cover the background first, then the murder. Linzi lived with her fiancé, twenty-eight-year-old Ahmed Shoaib, in a rented flat above a toyshop. They chose it because Linzi was a Harry Potter fanatic. Ahmed wanted to live somewhere quieter, off the main drag, but Linzi liked seeing the kids going in and out of the toyshop with their magic wands or whatever, so they stayed where they were, in one of Combingham’s main shopping areas. Linzi desperately wanted to have kids – she and Ahmed had been trying for a year or so, and she was worried about her fertility because she’d been on the pill for years and thought it might have had a lasting effect. No worries about Ahmed’s fertility: he had two kids with his previous girlfriend Dawn Tooke.’

‘Dawn Tooke the kids,’ James Wing quipped, to half-hearted laughter.