Pope nodded. ‘It’s right on the M4, less than an hour from here and roughly the same distance from Oxford. There’s also Gloucester. Or Cheltenham. They’re all conveniently between the two sites.’

‘Maybe,’ Harland said slowly. ‘Let’s check for any similar cases along the M4 corridor and see if anything turns up.’

He picked up his mug and took a bitter sip of cold coffee.

‘I’m not sure we’re going to find our killer sitting in the middle of the map, though.’

‘How’s that?’ Pope asked.

‘Well, he’s not made many mistakes yet, has he?’ Harland said, taking a photo of the Oxford crime scene from the table and sliding it across to Pope. ‘Look at the location he chose there – and I do believe it was chosen, not random. The more we learn about him, the more things seem carefully planned out.’

‘So he’s probably too smart to live in a dump like Swindon then,’ Mendel grinned ruefully.

Harland smiled. ‘I’m not trying to burst your bubble. I just don’t believe our man would do something as obvious as that. He dumped both bodies in water and managed to avoid being spotted or leaving anything of himself at the scenes . . . I think he’s probably quite clever.’

‘Clever people make mistakes too,’ Mendel said.

‘We live in hope.’ Harland paused for a moment, then looked up. ‘I do think there might be something in the location of the murders, though. Let’s say for a moment that the two killings weren’t opportunistic – they were premeditated. If that’s true, then the killer probably knows both areas fairly well, or has spent a bit of time in each place, planning how he was going to do things.’

‘Why wouldn’t they be opportunistic killings?’ Pope asked.

‘On its own, the Oxford one might have been,’ Mendel said, ‘but you wouldn’t choose a freezing cold morning on Severn Beach unless you knew someone was going to be there.’

‘Exactly.’ Harland walked over to the window and looked out at the bright blue sky over Portishead, wisps of silver cloud blowing in across the town. ‘DI King thought that Erskine’s killer was probably someone local to Oxford because they seemed to know the place. We thought the same about the murder here. Now we’ve connected both deaths, perhaps we need to change our thinking about how the killer knows the two sites.’

‘He might live near one, and work near the other,’ Mendel suggested.

‘Severn Beach is a small place,’ Pope said. ‘It’ll be easier to find someone there than somewhere like Oxford.’

Harland considered this. They had to be seen to be doing something.

‘It’s somewhere to start,’ he said, walking slowly back to the whiteboard. ‘We certainly need to find something besides that house key to link the victims.’

‘Did Thames Valley have any theories about the key?’ Mendel asked.

‘No.’ Harland shook his head. ‘It was such an innocuous thing. With the other door key still on the body, King said they didn’t really attach too much importance to it, at least until we contacted them.’

‘Not exactly their finest hour,’ Pope muttered under his breath.

Harland was suddenly angry, turning to say something, to put Pope in his fucking place, but a thought stopped him dead.

‘What is it?’ Mendel asked.

‘Something innocuous, something you wouldn’t spot unless you were looking for it.’ Harland frowned, leafing through his papers until he found what he was searching for. He quickly scanned the list of personal effects, then turned to the others. ‘What if there was something on Erskine’s body that didn’t belong to him? Maybe not a key, but something small, ordinary . . .’

‘Something planted there by the killer,’ Mendel nodded.

‘That would mean there’s a third body out there somewhere,’ Pope said. ‘We need to call Thames Valley, get them to check through Erskine’s personal effects.’

‘Agreed.’ Harland picked up his papers, paused and looked at Mendel. ‘What about Vicky Sutherland?’

Mendel sat back in his chair.

‘That could be tricky,’ he said quietly.

‘What are you talking about?’ Pope asked.

‘Finding something that isn’t there,’ Mendel replied. ‘If we find something from a previous murder planted on Erskine, it follows that something may have been taken from Vicky.’

‘For the next victim,’ Harland explained. Adrenalin coursed through him, no longer driven by anger, but excitement. They were just scratching the surface, and what they were uncovering might be bigger than anyone thought.

Blake beckoned Harland into his office, his expression a blend of determined optimism and unease.

‘Take a seat, Graham.’ He walked round the desk and slid into his own chair. There was an unpleasant eagerness about him at the moment. Ever the politician, he was always keen for news, for progress, for a chance to take credit, but just as ready to push the whole mess back onto Thames Valley if it looked like it was turning sour.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Harland said, keeping his voice and his body language neutral, difficult to read. He wasn’t going to make anything easy for the white-haired Superintendent.

‘I understand that DI King’s been assisting you with details of the Oxford murder.’ It wasn’t a question. Blake was keeping a close eye on this one. ‘I trust that’s proved useful . . .’

He left it hanging, using the silence to underline the severity of the situation. It was a tiresome game, but Harland didn’t want to drag things out.

‘Any information is useful,’ he said. ‘This victim was male, so we know it’s not someone who simply hates women. There are certain similarities in the two attacks – both inflicting fatal injuries to the head, both disposing of the body in water. And we’re now convinced the killings are planned in advance.’

‘Motive?’

‘Nothing yet. But the body in Oxford makes it less likely that the killer is local to this area. We’ve started looking for similar attacks along the M4 corridor.’

‘Good.’ Blake nodded slowly for a moment.

Harland glanced up at him. Good? The second body had done virtually nothing for the investigation other than resetting it to square one. What was the Superintendent thinking?

Blake stared thoughtfully at his desk for a moment, then sat back in his chair and looked at a point on the wall above Harland’s head.

‘I think we need to be seen to pursue every avenue, Graham,’ he began.

This didn’t sound good . . .

‘The media is an essential tool in the fight against crime, and I believe it’s time we used it. We’re going to do a TV reconstruction, see if it turns up any new leads.’

Harland rubbed his weary eyes, with a sudden dread of where the conversation was going.

‘I want you to help with this, present the relevant facts and make sure we’re properly represented on the programme.’

Not me. Anyone but me.

He thought back to the media training course he’d been forced to attend – his dread of reporters with their cameras and their microphones ready to ensnare him – and shuddered.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to have someone else do it? I’m not really cut out for this sort of thing—’

Give it to someone else. Give it to Pope – he’d love the attention.

‘Nonsense.’ Blake was already on his feet, moving round the desk to open the door for him. ‘I’ve told the media team to expect you. It’s all arranged.’

Harland stood up. His mouth suddenly felt dry and he was numb with frustration, but he wouldn’t let it show.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he murmured and stalked out of the room.

16

Sunday, 24 June

Sunday had dawned grey and overcast, and they spent a lazy morning in bed with the papers. By eleven, the sun had begun to peep in, illuminating the pale linen curtains and casting a golden strip of light across the crumpled duvet. Stretching sleepily, Kim got up and disappeared into the shower while Naysmith wandered downstairs.