‘As tempting as that is I can’t leave. You know as well as I do that he will hurt someone close to me to bring me back, and that means Jake or your parents. He’s clever, Will. He won’t just give up and hand himself in at the nearest police station. You and I both know that he’ll keep on going until he’s got what he wants.’

Will paused. ‘Damn it, Annie, I hate it that you always have to be so practical and that you’re always right.’

‘I’m not always right, but there’s something about Henry that makes me think like him, and I don’t like it. I wouldn’t hurt anyone unless it was in the line of duty and completely necessary, but that man makes me think like a killer. For some bizarre reason I can’t explain I feel as if I have a connection to him. I love you.’

‘I love you more. Is the big guy there?’

‘He’s in with the inspector who sounds about as happy as the rest of us. I’ll tell him to ring you when he comes back.’

She ended the call knowing full well that he wouldn’t be the one to press the red button first. He hated saying goodbye. Will was well aware he had turned into a complete wimp since he’d met Annie, but he didn’t care. She was the only woman who had ever taken his heart completely. His desk phone began to ring so he picked it up to hear a call handler on the other end barking orders on the radio, as well as down the earpiece.

‘Is that Will Ashworth?’

‘Speaking.’

‘There’s a guy on the phone. Says he’s a farmer from Walney, a Gordon Corkill. He thinks he’s seen Megan near the field where the body was found. He’s only just been catching up with the papers. Wants to speak to whoever is in charge.’

‘Brilliant, thank you.’

He waited for the call to be transferred. ‘Hello, Detective Sergeant Ashworth speaking.’

‘Are you the chap in charge of this case?’

‘I am, sir. Can I help you?’

‘I’m thinking more along the lines of if I can help you, son. I’m sorry I haven’t rung before but I work long hours and only have Wednesday afternoons off. It’s then that I sit down with a cold beer and read the week’s papers. Well, I’m pretty sure I recognise that young lass that you’re looking for. She doesn’t have blonde hair, though. When I spoke to her it was dark brown, but she has the same ears as the one in the picture.’

Will tried not to groan as he leant forward and banged his head against the desk. Stu looked across at him wondering if he’d finally flipped.

‘I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean. How can you recognise someone by their ears?’

‘They are the one thing that never changes. You can dye your hair, bleach your teeth, straighten your nose, but not many people mess with their ears. I noticed she had a small birthmark above the earring on her left ear. It was like a large brown freckle. Well, that picture in the paper – when you look at it closely – you can just make out a brown smudge in the same place.’

Will jumped up from his chair and turned round to look at the picture of Megan that was taped to the whiteboard behind his desk. He squinted and, yes, he could make out what looked like a large brown freckle on her left ear, just above where her earring was.

‘Sir, you are a genius. Can I come and speak to you right now with one of my officers? It’s a matter of life and death.’

‘Aye, I thought it might be serious. That man she’s shacked up with is bad news. I live in the big, stone farmhouse next to the riding school. You know which one I mean?’

Will didn’t have a clue but he’d find it. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes. Thank you.’ He put the phone down. ‘Come on, Stu, we have our first eyewitness. A farmer who reckons he spoke to Megan a couple of months ago near to a field.’ He didn’t go into detail about the birthmark. Stu would argue it was a coincidence, but Will didn’t care if it was. Any witness was better than the fuck-all they had at the moment. He grabbed a set of car keys off the board and rushed out of the door, with Stu close behind.

He reached the road to the riding school and was surprised to see the farmhouse. All the years he’d been coming over here, he’d never noticed it. He carried on until he reached the big wooden gates that were propped open. There was a brand-new Land Rover parked in front of the house. Who said farmers were poor? The door opened and a man who looked fitter than him and Stu put together walked towards their car. Will got out and shook the man’s hand. ‘Thank you. I can’t tell you how much this means.’

‘No problem, son. I just wish I’d heard about it sooner. Come inside and I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t a great deal, but I saw her a few times after that afternoon. Sometimes it was walking but mainly she was driving a small silver van.’

‘Do you know the registration?’ Will prayed to God that he did.

‘No, I didn’t take much notice of it, to be honest, but I can describe the van to you.’ He led them both inside his house and into the warm kitchen that smelt of home-made soup.

‘Wife’s gone to the Bingo, so I make the dinner on a Wednesday.’

Will’s stomach let out a groan. He hadn’t realised just how hungry he was. ‘Was she always on her own?’

‘No, sometimes she had a chap with her. Always had one of those baseball caps on. I never saw him without it and, if it wasn’t hot, sometimes he wore his hood on top of it as well.’

Will wanted to kiss the man in front of him. This was their first solid lead and eyewitness. ‘Where do you think they were coming from?’

‘Oh now that I can tell you – the caravan park a couple of miles up the road. I sometimes take the grandkids swimming up there and I would see the van parked, near the clubhouse. They must have been stopping in one of the static caravans up there. I can’t say as I remember seeing it lately, though, and I was up there just this morning.’

Will nodded. Taking out his phone he began to give orders to the control room inspector, telling him exactly what he needed. He asked for the task force team to be brought in armed to the teeth. They needed to find the caravan and fast. Stu had his head down and was busy taking down as many details as he could. Will couldn’t concentrate so he went outside for some fresh air and to wait for the patrols that would be arriving soon to help with the search.

1 June 1931

Martha wiped her brow with her sleeve. She was concentrating so hard it was making a fine film of perspiration form on her brow. She was in Joe’s room even though she wasn’t supposed to be. It was hard to breathe. The air was so hot and stuffy with the windows closed. Her mother no longer allowed anyone in here but she liked to sneak inside when she could. She would sit on the chair by the window, snuggling down into the soft cushions and trying to make herself invisible. There she would clutch on to Joe’s favourite stuffed rabbit, which only had one eye because they had ripped the other one off in a struggle for it last year.

She didn’t go out into the garden much because she was sure she had seen the thing that took him twice out there, looking up at the house. The first time she had been told off and had come in here to sulk. It had been getting dark outside and there were shadows all around the garden, but she had seen something scurry across the grass by the water’s edge. It had been too big to be a cat or a dog and it hadn’t waddled like a bird would. Instead it had moved fast, like a rat, but it had been too big for one of those and it looked half human the way it was bent over. She had seen the rats that Davey sometimes caught in the traps and they were a thousand times smaller than the thing that had run across the lawn.

She had watched it, her heart racing, the fear making her whole body feel as if an electric current was running though it. Yet she had been fascinated. It had paused for a second, turning to look at the house, and she had let out a small screech and pushed herself down into the chair so that it couldn’t see her. She didn’t want it to know that she knew about it because she didn’t want it to eat her just like it had eaten Joe. She shivered. Poor Joe. He had been a pain but he hadn’t deserved to be stolen by some scary monster. Then the monster disappeared near the hedge and was gone.