‘Dr Woolwine, we have an active lead. That seems to me to be the more likely means of tracing the offender.’

‘But you have no idea if it’s the same man …’

‘We don’t have multiple adult females killed or kidnapped in Edinburgh each year. The statistical likelihood of this being a coincidence is extremely low, as I believe you yourself argued earlier in the investigation.’

‘I just need to put out the alert. I’ll process the responses myself. Your team won’t have to deal with it.’

‘Fine,’ Overbeck snapped. ‘You stay here and field responses to the alert. Baarda, I need you with my squad.’

‘Sure,’ Connie said, pulling a draft of the alert from her pocket.

Ailsa Lambert walked past, patting Connie on the shoulder and offering a sympathetic smile.

‘Well done,’ the chief pathologist said. ‘It’s progress.’

‘Too little, too late, given that another woman’s been taken,’ Connie said. ‘If he needs another woman, it can only be because Elspeth is dead.’

‘You don’t know that yet. Don’t lose hope,’ Ailsa said.

‘I’m more pragmatist than optimist, I’m afraid.’

‘Then channel the pragmatism into getting results. People’s lives still need saving.’

Connie looked at her watch. ‘It’s two a.m. Who the hell takes out their trash at this time?’

Chapter Thirty-Four

Elspeth didn’t sound good, like a living bike tyre with a puncture. Her arm was a mess too, and while he could probably have fixed that for her, why bother? In pain and unable to use one of her arms, she was much easier to control. Meggy, too, consequentially. Right now, they were bound to one another on the floor of his bedroom. He was resting in the kitchen. The fight had worn him out, and he was trying to capture a memory that had stuck its tongue into his brain as he’d been choking Elspeth. He’d felt it there, squirming and elusive, as he’d pulled the light cord tighter. It wasn’t a sensation of enjoyment exactly, more a familiarity. A sense of prior knowledge, expertise even. The way he’d wrapped the cable around her neck three times to provide enough width to crush the windpipe rather than simply cutting straight through the flesh. The understanding that she would inevitably waste her energy on trying to release the cord rather than attacking him. It was a reliving of sorts, yet he really couldn’t figure out how he’d come by the knowledge. It had felt like an ending, though. Closure, the Americans would say. Connie Woolwine would know what it meant.