Will felt a surge of anger so hot that he turned and punched the brick wall. He wanted to kill Henry Smith.

‘Argh.’

He began shaking his hand and Jake stepped in front of him so Annie couldn’t see what he was doing. Jake grabbed his arm.

‘You need to calm down. What good is it going to do if you give yourself a heart attack? We need to find this bastard and I mean like today, like now, because I know he’s coming for Annie whether we like it or not. She can’t be left alone and I’m completely serious. From now on you or I do not leave her side, and if work don’t like it then they can go fuck themselves. It’s us and Kav and I think Cathy will agree. We need to form our own little task force, and so be it if I lose my job, but we need to turn the tables and hunt him down. And when we find him this time he’s not going to get away. I’ll personally escort him back to that secure unit and throw away the key.’

‘You’re right. I totally agree. It would be too much of a coincidence to have another psycho on the loose, so yes, I’m with you. I’ll get everything together I can. There must be someone who saw him around the time he put the head in the back of Cathy’s car. I mean, come on, it was broad daylight outside a police station. Somewhere there must be a camera in the area that has captured him. We need to find out what vehicle he was driving because he didn’t just stroll through the centre of Bowness with a severed head in his hand.’

Jake nodded. ‘That’s a good point. He needs a vehicle to take his victims away and then drive up to Bowness. He’s playing us all, leaving the bodies in Barrow where you’re on duty and the heads for us to find. I’m not scared to admit I’m worried. He knows exactly what he’s doing.’

Cathy stepped closer. ‘I’m with you. He’s probably mentally unbalanced Georgia for God knows how long. She’s never going to want to look in a car boot again for the rest of her life. As much as I’m all for keeping to the rules, it’s gone past that now. If he’s willing to take such blatant risks as this we need to find him fast.’

She pointed to the boot of the car. ‘He doesn’t care and he has nothing to lose. I reckon he knows it’s only a matter of time before the net closes in and that makes him even more dangerous.’

She stopped talking as the chief superintendent’s black Land Rover pulled up outside her house. She looked at her ex-husband behind the wheel and turned away muttering.

‘Jesus, that’s all I need. I can’t stand the prick on a good day and today’s a pretty shit one. Hold me back if I try to smack him, will you? I don’t want to give him the satisfaction. And don’t say a word about our conversation to anyone. I don’t want him getting involved. You know what a brown-nosing, glory hunter he is. The less he knows the better. It can be between us. We can cut our wrists with a piece of broken glass after and hold our bleeding hands together to seal the deal.’

Will finally broke a smile. ‘Thank you, it means a lot to me to know that we’re not on our own. When we’ve finished here we’ll go to Jake’s if you’re still up for it.’

‘Yes, I’m going to make the idiot take Georgia either back home with him so she can spoil his evening or to her friend’s house so she can get some sleep away from this mess.’

‘I’ll take Annie back to my house. You come as soon as you’re done, Will.’

Will walked Jake back to the car and opened the passenger door where Annie was sitting. He bent down and kissed her on the lips, not caring who was looking. He loved his wife and they could stuff procedures.

‘Why, Will? What’s the point of it all?’

‘Hey, you’re the psychic one, not me. Can you not figure it out?’

She laughed and it made him feel better.

‘I’m still not that great at the whole psychic thing. Sorry.’

‘Look, Jake’s going to take you back to his house. There’s nothing you can do. I will be there as soon as we’ve processed the scene and then I’ll come back with Cathy. Annie, I’m deadly serious. You are not to go anywhere on your own from now on. I’m not taking any chances. We don’t know for sure, but who else could it be other than Henry Smith?’

She lifted her hand and stroked the side of his face.

‘I won’t; I promise I’ll be a good girl.’

‘Well, that would make a refreshing change.’

He shut the door and stepped back so that Jake could drive away and take her back to his warm, safe house.

Will walked over to the chief super who was shooting daggers at the back of Cathy’s head.

‘Right, sir, we have a big problem, a really big problem.’

The chief super tore his attention away from his ex-wife and looked at Will. His face was pale and Will couldn’t help being a little bit glad that he was feeling as bad as Will was.

‘I think you might be right. What are we going to do? Because I’m not happy that someone is going round leaving severed heads in police officers’ cars.’ He lowered his voice. ‘As much as I dislike Cathy, I don’t like the fact that my daughter was the one to discover it. Is this a coincidence? Is whoever this is targeting my family? Should I be worried?’

‘No, sir. I don’t believe he was targeting her as such. I think he was targeting my wife, Annie. He didn’t know what car she was driving so he put it in the only one he could gain access to, which unfortunately was Cathy’s. I’m gravely concerned that this is the work of Henry Smith, sir, and I think he’s going to come after Annie again.’

‘Shite, now what the bloody hell are we going to do? This is a complete mess.’

‘Well we need to find him – and as soon as possible before he does something that I won’t be able to live with.’

‘Yes, right. Leave it with me; I’ll…erm…I’ll get a team together. We’ll have a briefing in the morning, eight o’clock sharp, and see what we can do.’

Will supposed it was better than he expected. At least he’d listened and wasn’t arguing. Two teams would be better than one. Surely between them all they should be able to find the murdering bastard and put him back behind bars.

1 January 1931

James opened his eyes and wondered where he was. Grey light filtered through the curtains and he turned on his side and saw Joseph’s train set on the floor. Then it hit him. He felt around for his wife but she had left him, so he got out of bed to search for her in the bedrooms. He made his way to the staircase and saw her slumped over in a heap on the bottom step. He rushed down the stairs, calling her name, scared that she had died from shock or something. She moved and let out a soft groan and he sighed. Sitting next to her, he pulled her close.

‘I was so scared when I saw you then, I thought…’

He didn’t finish his sentence; he couldn’t say the words out loud.

‘He’s not coming back, James. I went into the cellar to look for him myself last night because I couldn’t sleep. There’s something down there and it chased me. I only just managed to get to the top and slam the door shut, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.’

‘Who is down there? Why didn’t you call for me and the police?’

He looked at his wife whose pale green eyes blinked back tears as she tried to find the right words.

‘I was too scared. What have you done, James?’ Her voice was rising with every word as the hysteria bubbled below the surface. It finally burst as she screamed, ‘What did you do? Why did you bring that monster into our home? And now our son has gone.’ Her tiny fists began to pummel his chest and he sat there and let her. He didn’t grab her wrists to stop her because he knew, deep down inside, that this was his fault, and if hitting him made her feel better, he’d let her hit him all day.

The tears began to flow and her pounding on his chest slowed down as she slumped down, fear and exhaustion turning her into a crumpled wreck at his feet. She looked up at him.

‘How is that thing in our cellar – that creature that looks like a man – alive? James, you have to believe me. I’m not lying. This is the truth. I saw it and it chased me.’