‘Oh, sorry.’ When my brain is going, I need to be moving. Normally I’d be pacing around the room. I didn’t even realise I’d been doing the old jiggly thing. I stood up and took to the floor. Paul watched with a bemused expression on his face.

‘Do you want me to join you up there?’

I shot him a look and continued on my way. ‘There is no single obvious suspect on the circus crew. Their timetabling, the nature of their close proximity to each other all of the time and the sheer menace of Terry Bennett meant almost everyone had an alibi and those that didn’t, didn’t count – children, a few of the women and a dwarf.’

‘Hey, don’t discount the women, the fairer sex is quite capable of murder.’

‘Yes, and I’m glad you acknowledge we’re the fairer sex. If you met these ladies you’d understand. One was the size of one of their house buses, and the other very petite. Ditto, the dwarf. It would take height and strength to physically assault those last few, particularly the young man who … oh.’ A thought had sprung to mind and I moved around behind Paul to take another look at the victim photos. Of course. Why hadn’t I noticed it earlier? One of those nasty crawling sensations began to work its way up my spine and across my scalp.

‘What have you spotted?’

‘It’s a progression, they’re a progression,’ I said, tapping my finger from photo to photo. ‘Look at the victims, and the killings. No wonder they seem random. They’re not, they were quite carefully selected, I’d bet, except perhaps the first one. Look at them. Erica Moorhouse, poisoned. The killer spiked the drink, then probably left. Didn’t have to see it, didn’t have to watch his victim die. Killed anonymously, as it were. Next, William Brody. Shot. Killed from a distance. Shot in the back. If you think about it, the shooter didn’t even have to look him in the face as he pulled the trigger. Quite clever too, choosing a victim who was fishing. If his shot was off, and he only injured him, then there was still a high probability the victim would fall into the water and drown anyway.’

Paul caught on to my train of thought. ‘The next one, drunk old bugger, a gentle push, no chance of a struggle, so no real risk for the killer. Murder for dummies.’