Dread filling him, he looked around. The grass was too long. If there was something dead it was hard to see, but the dog would have run to it and rolled in it. She’d rolled in the carcass of a dead whale that had washed up on the beach at Roanhead last week, stinking their old house out for days. Instead she was going mad scratching at the door to the barn. As he got closer he inhaled and almost gagged. The stench was horrific. He took out his phone and rang Will, who he knew was at work.

‘It’s me. I’m in an overgrown field on Walney and the bloody dog’s going mental.’

‘Morning, Stu, what would you like me to do? Send out a response officer to taser the dog?’

‘Don’t be stupid. I’m not phoning because I can’t control my dog, although that’s not a bad idea.’

‘Well, that’s a relief then; I’m glad to hear it. So why are you phoning?’

‘There’s a knackered old barn and the stench coming from it is gut-wrenching. I think I might have inadvertently stumbled across Beth O’Connor’s body.’

‘Really? Have you opened the door to have a look? Good effort, Stu.’

‘No, because the dog will go inside and then I’ll have to go in and trample all over everything to drag it out. I’ll wait for you to get here and then we can put the dog in the back of your car. I haven’t got my car with me. It might only be a dead animal but it smells worse than that, if you know what I mean.’

Will knew what he meant; the smell of rotting flesh was so pungent that it clung to your clothes like the world’s worst aftershave, lingering for days. He had sent the two detectives who were on duty out to go and view CCTV so he went down to the parade room to see if there was anyone he could grab to go with him, but that was empty. Kav walked in with a mug of coffee and nodded.

‘Can you come with me, Kav? I need you.’

‘Steady on, Will, have you not got a lovely wife now to sort you out?’

‘I need your professional help. Stu thinks he’s found a body in a barn in the middle of a field on Walney. It might be Beth O’Connor’s.’

Kav put the drink down and then grabbed a set of keys off the whiteboard.

‘After you, William. One of these days you will want me for something other than a dead body.’

Kav drove with the blue lights on, to get through the traffic on the bridge. Will was on the phone to Stu, getting directions from him that he relayed to Kav. Before long they pulled up at the field where Stu was standing waving his arms at them. There was a poodle tied up to the metal gate. Kav looked at the dog then looked at Stu.

‘Nice dog, Stuart – matches the image.’

‘Piss off. It’s Debs’. I hate it.’

Will sniggered as he walked to the boot of the car and lifted the trunk to pass some paper suits around. He held one out to Stu, who shook his head.

‘I’m not on duty, so you two can knock yourselves out. I’ll guard the gate and not let anyone in. It might not even be a body. It could be a dead cow, but whatever it is it bloody stinks.’

Will and Kav got suited and booted and walked across the field, the smell making both men’s eyes water.

‘That’s bad.’

‘Yes, it is.’

Will approached the wooden door. Reaching out his gloved hand he gently pushed it, expecting it to be locked, but it opened. The smell was so pungent that Kav – who was a veteran police officer of nearly thirty years and had seen everything there was to see – gagged. Will switched on the torch that he’d been carrying and stepped inside, lifting one arm over his nose and using the other to shine the torch around. Kav stepped in behind him and whistled.

‘Jesus Christ almighty.’

There were two headless bodies slumped on the floor, surrounded by pools of dried blood and covered in swarms of bluebottles and maggots. Will shone his torch around to make sure there were no more then shone it back on the bodies. One of them was bloated and black. It had been eaten away by every insect possible and it looked as if the whole body was moving. The other looked a lot fresher, and although it was covered with flies and maggots it still had white flesh attached to it. It suddenly hit Will, who turned to Kav then pointed to the door; both of them retreated to the outside where they took in huge gulps of air.

‘Did you see that? What a state. At least we know where the rest of Beth is.’

‘Yes, I did, but Kav, there were two bodies – both with no heads. So who does the other one belong to?’

‘Aw bloody hell, I was so sickened by the sight of them I didn’t even think about it. Have we got any high-risk mispers?’

‘Not that I’m aware of – no one has been reported missing in the last forty-eight hours, at least not from around here. We need to go back and check the database and we need to find her head.’

‘Will, my friend, where do you think the head might be? The last one turned up miles away when Annie was on duty. I’m sorry to say this but there’s only one reason I can think of that someone would want to leave severed heads for our delightful Annie. I’m almost too afraid to say it reminds me of the not-so-delightful Henry Smith. No one knows where he is, but if you ask me I think he’s up to his old tricks again. I knew the bastard wouldn’t be able to stop. It’s all one big game for him, and we now have to prove that it’s him all over again.’

The panic on Will’s face said it all and he whipped out his phone to ring Annie, who answered straight away.

‘Where are you? Are you on your own?’

‘No, I’m at Beckett House with the inspector and two PCSOs. Why?’

‘Just checking. Stu stumbled across two headless bodies in a barn on Walney while out walking the dog. I need you to be extra careful and vigilant because I have a terrible feeling the head might be on its way up to you.’

‘Oh God, I hope not. Will, I’ve been thinking about this on and off all day – where do you think Henry Smith is? Honestly. Because I don’t believe he’s shacked up somewhere and keeping his head down. I’m worried that this has his signature written all over it. We both know that he was obsessed with me and wanted me dead, only I stopped him in his tracks. Do you think he’s over that now, that he has forgiven me and isn’t interested? I don’t. As much as I want to believe this is something else that has nothing to do with me, I can’t.’

‘I think you might be right, but I can’t start a widespread panic in case it isn’t. You need to be so very careful; I don’t want you going to any calls on your own. When you leave the station make sure there’s no one hanging around and make sure you’re not followed home. Do you want me to come up there and pick you up?’

‘No, you can’t do that now. You need to process the scene and I can’t think of anyone better than you for the job. What are we going to do? Because if it is him, he must know where I work. Otherwise why would he leave a head in Bowness and the body in Barrow? In fact he must know an awful lot more about us than we do about him because that’s what he’s good at. Watching and waiting, biding his time. He’s playing with us both. He’s like a cat taunting a mouse. I can feel it.’

Will walked away from the others and lowered his voice. ‘We might be jumping to conclusions and I hope we are, but it’s too much of a coincidence. He wanted you dead. Instead you almost killed him and lived another day. What did he get for his efforts? Third-degree burns and locked up in a secure mental hospital until he managed to escape. At least you have a different car and your hair’s much longer than it was when he first…’

He didn’t finish the sentence; Annie finished it for him.

‘Than when he first began to stalk me, you mean. Please, God, I don’t want any more blood on my hands. I have a hard enough time sleeping at night without dreaming about Jenna White or Emma Tyson.’

‘You know none of that was your fault. You were not responsible for his actions. Please be careful, Annie. Promise me that if you so much as see a man looking your way that you’ll gas him and get him cuffed.’