‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll make contact with King’s College myself,’ Jane said.

‘For your own sake, why not just wait and see what Barnes says? If he authorises a full investigation, calling in the experts won’t be an issue.’

‘You’re right. I shouldn’t be so impatient,’ she said, fully intending to make the call whatever Barnes said.

‘No, you shouldn’t.’ He got a card out of his pocket with his office number on it and wrote his home number on the back. ‘If you fancy going out for a drink one evening give me a ring. Be good to catch up properly.’

She took the card. ‘Yes, I’d like that . . . maybe at the weekend if I’m not on a murder squad.’

He gave her a big wink. ‘They couldn’t solve it without you, Jane.’

CHAPTER SIX

Jane found it hard to concentrate on the road as she drove back to the station, nearly going through a red light had it not been for Boon warning her to stop. The thought of how the victim suffered an agonising death, paralysed and unable to breathe, made her feel nauseous. She wondered what could make someone so determined to kill a nun and whether it was a spur-of-the-moment incident or planned. There was no way of knowing where it had taken place, but somewhere within the old convent grounds seemed most likely.

Boon was looking out of the window, as if in a daydream, when he suddenly sat up and clicked his fingers. ‘I’ve just had a thought about Barry the builder opening the coffin, and there being a cross on the body that’s missing. Perhaps he nicked it. And what if the knife that was used to kill the nun was still in the coffin, too.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Jane said. ‘Lloyd searched the coffin.’

‘I know,’ Boon said. ‘But Barry might have nicked the knife as well.’

‘That’s good thinking, Boony,’ Jane replied in a positive tone, though she thought it unlikely.

He looked pleased. ‘Thanks, sarge. It would be a right result if Barry did have it. Teflon – sorry, Lloyd – might get some fingerprints off it.’

‘When we get back, I’ll start the report. It’s a long shot, but I’d like you to phone missing persons and make an enquiry on what we know so far,’ Jane told him.

‘Which isn’t very much. What about asking the Church if they have any records of missing nuns?’

‘I’ll ask Stanley if it’s OK to speak with Father Floridia about that. You stick to the mispers for now.’

‘I doubt mispers will go back to the 1800s,’ he sighed.

Jane knew identifying a female missing person as a possible victim would put pressure on DCS Barnes to fully investigate the nun’s murder – even more so if any of her family were still alive. ‘We know she was a nun, her height and hair colour. Confine your initial search to the 1960s for blonde-haired women, aged between sixteen and thirty . . . then we can go back to the 1950s if we need to.’