When Max stopped the car outside St Mary’s Church, Jill was beside herself with rage. It was the hypocrisy that angered her the most. Outside the church, easily seen thanks to an orange floodlight, was a huge sign welcoming people to worship. That Father Gosling had the cheek to stand in front of his parishioners and preach to them beggared belief.

‘I suppose it was God’s will,’ she muttered.

Max switched off the car’s engine and unfastened his seat belt. ‘That’ll be it, kiddo.’

Jill was impatient to confront Gosling, but they stayed in the warmth until a patrol car pulled up behind them.

‘Come on,’ Max said.

They walked up the path to the church but, although the building was well lit, there was no sign of Jill’s favourite priest.

‘We’ll try the house,’ Max said.

The four of them marched up the winding driveway to the large house next to the church.

Max rang the bell and, seconds later, a dark-haired woman in her late forties opened the door. She gave an involuntary gasp at the sight of them. Uniformed police officers have that effect on people.

‘We’d like to speak to Father Gosling,’ Max told her, showing her his ID.

‘Oh. You’d better come in then.’

They walked into a hallway that was steeped in furniture polish. In fact, Jill thought the house had the same smell as the church.

‘Just a minute,’ the housekeeper said awkwardly.

She left them filling the hallway and knocked on a door to their left before entering.

Jill took advantage of the housekeeper’s absence to have a look round. Two antique tables and a dresser looked to be worth a few pounds and the carpet, although a little worn, was of the best quality. As might be expected, there were several effigies of Christ or the Virgin Mary to be seen. There was plenty of highly-polished silver on display, too.

The door clicked open and Father Gosling, dressed in a dark suit with those same brown shoes, came into the hallway.

‘What’s all this then?’ Without waiting for a reply, he addressed his housekeeper. ‘That’s fine, Rebecca. I’ll deal with this, thank you.’

She escaped through another door.

‘You’d better come into the sitting room,’ he told his visitors and the four followed him. Jill’s heart was pounding with rage.

‘Now then,’ he said, ‘what’s all this about?’

‘I’m here to arrest you for the attempted—’ Max began, only to be cut off.

‘Arrest me? I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, I think you do.’ Jill couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘I suppose you thought, hoped, that Steve would die. Well, as you’ve probably heard, he’s tougher than that and is going to make a full recovery. He’s sitting up in bed, his memory as sharp as ever, able to recall every detail of the morning you called on him and left him for dead.’

A bible in a soft, black leather binding was sitting on the table and Jill picked it up to flick through it.

‘You ought to read this,’ she said. ‘I’m no expert, but I’m sure it says something like “thou shalt not kill”. Or perhaps you believe that doesn’t apply to you?’

‘He was going to divorce Alison,’ he retorted, as if that was reason enough.

‘And not before time by the sounds of it. He’d wanted a divorce for years but Alison wouldn’t hear of it. I wonder why. Because she stood to inherit everything from you and wanted to keep on the right side of you?’

‘It has nothing to do with that. The church is against divorce, Miss Kennedy!’

‘And it’s not against murder?’ she cried in astonishment, hurling the bible across the room. ‘Jesus, this is a bloody funny church you have here!’

‘How dare you talk to me like that?’ His eyes were dark slits and spittle landed on her face as he snapped at her. ‘He was going to break her heart!’

‘Break her heart?’ Jill echoed with a hollow laugh. ‘She’s been too busy shagging her boyfriend to have her heart broken.’

‘Father David Gosling, I am arresting you—’ Max said again, but he got no further.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt him,’ Gosling said, his voice softer.

‘So what did you mean to do?’ Jill asked.

He was looking at her as if he pitied her. There was an almost secret smile in his eyes, too. No remorse, just that smile. It made her sick, yet her mind was racing through the last conversation she’d had with the priest.

‘You were friends with her mother, weren’t you?’ she said curiously and his smile vanished.

‘Bloody hell!’ She should have guessed. ‘Alison’s your daughter, isn’t she?’

‘I would die for her,’ the priest spat out. ‘Just as I would have died for her mother. I couldn’t stand by and let that man hurt her.’

Jill struggled to take her eyes from him. She wasn’t religious but, usually, she had a great deal of respect for men, and women, of the cloth. This man, Father Gosling, was one of the most vile people she had ever met.

‘You’re a hypocrite,’ she said at last. ‘A lying, cheating hypocrite who thinks he’s above the God he claims to worship. The vow of celibacy means nothing to you. Murder means nothing to you.’

‘You think I care what you think? Yes, it’s true. Alison is my daughter.’

‘Does she know?’

‘Of course she knows, you stupid little fool.’

‘Steve doesn’t, though, does he?’

‘What does it matter to him? He was going to divorce her, that’s all that matters. I went there to frighten him. I didn’t have a weapon, but the knife was there—’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jill cut him off. ‘Remind us never to have dinner with you.’

Max nodded at PC Wilde. ‘Cuff him.’

He went quietly, almost proudly, and was soon sitting in the back of the patrol car. Even as it pulled away, his eyes bored into Jill’s.

When the car was out of sight, she let out her breath on a long sigh.

‘I hope they throw away the key,’ she muttered.

‘He won’t be leading his flock for a while.’

‘How dare he?’ she demanded. ‘How dare he preach his sermons and listen to people’s confessions?’

‘He hasn’t proved a hit with you, has he?’

She smiled at the understatement. ‘What a hateful man.’

As Max drove them away, she gazed out of the window and tried to forget Father Gosling. It was impossible. She’d like to believe he’d acted out of love for his daughter, but she couldn’t. He was Alison’s father, yet he hadn’t wanted what was best for her.

She’d always believed Alison too shallow to worship in Harrington every Sunday. So why had she? To be near her father? Or to make sure he didn’t cut her out of his will?

She wondered what lengths a father would go to to give his daughter the life he believed she should have. What about Vincent Cole, for example? He’d loved his daughter, Jill had no doubt, but she hadn’t been living the life he’d wanted for her.

‘Forget him,’ Max broke into her thoughts. ‘He isn’t worth it.’

‘Gosling? He’s forgotten. Actually, I was thinking about Vincent Cole.’

‘What about him?’ He accelerated to overtake the car in front of him.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, but something was niggling her.

Belatedly, she realized that Max was driving out of the town.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I thought you wanted to call at your place and collect some clothes.’

‘I did. Yes, thanks.’

‘We’ll do that, and then I’ll run you home. It’ll give them time to process our favourite priest. I’ll nip back to deal with him and then, that’s it. Finished for Christmas.’

‘Thank God for that!’

Jill’s thoughts returned to Vincent Cole. Temple had claimed that Cole constantly told his daughter she was pathetic. That wasn’t the impression Jill had gained. She’d thought him saddened to see Lauren losing her way in the world.

‘Hell, I forgot to tell you about my late-night caller,’ Jill said.

‘What about him?’

‘He’s now taken to calling in the middle of the day, it seems. But it came through direct to my office extension, Max.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Merry Christmas.’

Max slapped the steering wheel. ‘I’ll give him merry bloody Christmas when I get my hands on him.’

*    *    *

Jill never knew whose decision it was to take a walk up the hill, hers or Max’s. Neither of them were dressed for it, but at least the wind had dropped and the temperature had risen slightly. It would soon be dark, though, and only a fool would be out on the hill then. For all that, they walked on, their gaze on Clough’s Shelter. Bleak and lonely, it was no place to die.

Perhaps coming out on to the hill was their way of making some sort of promise to Lauren Cole. As yet, they hadn’t found her killer. But they would.

‘Temple’s alibi is worse than useless, you know,’ Max said as if he could read her thoughts.

‘True, but he’s not guilty. He killed Vincent Cole, not Lauren.’

‘What makes you so certain? It was your profile that put us on to him in the first place.’

She was fully aware of that, but she was certain he was innocent of Lauren’s murder. Her profile had led her to someone who knew Lauren well, better than most people did—

‘Who’s that?’ she murmured. ‘What the devil would anyone be doing up here at this time of day?’

‘The same as us maybe?’ Max suggested drily.

As they walked on, Jill recognized the figure. It was Jimmy Walker. Jill had only seen him once, that afternoon in the cafe, since the day Pat had been called to school to explain his truancy.

‘How odd,’ she murmured.

‘What?’

She shook her head, unable to explain because Jimmy was within earshot.

‘Hi, Jimmy, how’s things?’ she asked as they met on the narrow track.

‘OK,’ he murmured.

‘Where have you been? Up to the shelter?’

‘Yeah.’ Unless she was mistaken, tears had dried on his cheeks. It was cold, but the wind wasn’t strong enough to make his eyes water. So why had he been shedding tears?

‘You know Max, don’t you? A policeman,’ she added for the benefit of his blank expression.

At that, Jimmy took an involuntary step back.

Something had been bothering the boy for a while, Jill had known that, but if the sight of a copper had him looking terrified, and it did, this was serious. Jill wished now that she’d quizzed Pat more. But Pat had put the problems down to Jimmy missing his dad.

‘Do you come up here a lot?’ she asked him.

It would be the ideal place for a boy who wanted to get away from it all, from his mother, from the village, from the pain of missing his father.

‘Sometimes.’

‘A young woman was killed here,’ Max said. ‘I suppose you heard about that?’

Jimmy nodded. As long as they blocked his path, he couldn’t escape. It was obvious he wanted to though.

‘Would you know anything about it?’ Max asked him.

Jimmy, panic in his eyes, looked at Jill.

‘Jimmy?’ she prompted.

He knew something, she was sure of it. The trouble was, he was too frightened to say anything.

‘If you know anything,’ she said, ‘you should tell us, you know that, don’t you?’

‘I—’

‘What do you know, Jimmy?’ she asked. ‘Did you know Lauren?’

He nodded, terror in eyes that had filled with tears again.

‘Tell us about it,’ she suggested.

She thought he was about to make a run for it, but he reached, very slowly, into his pocket and brought out an iPhone.

‘Is that the one your dad bought you?’ she asked lightly, and he nodded.

He hit a couple of buttons, looked at Jill, then at Max. Finally, he hit another button and handed his phone to Max.

Jill was at the wrong angle so she couldn’t see anything other than glare on the screen. Max, though, she could tell, was looking at something very interesting.

Eventually, Max hit a button and handed the phone to her.

To her complete amazement, she saw a shaky video of Lauren Cole walking up the hill, her white dog running alongside her. And that’s all she saw. Lauren Cole walking. The distance was too great to see her in close up, but there was no mistaking her. She was wearing a red coat and dark blue jeans.

Was Jimmy looking so upset because he’d had a crush on the dead girl?

The camera angle changed so that it showed someone else with Lauren. It was impossible to tell who it was. Was it Steve Carlisle?

Then the angle changed again and half of the screen showed a stone wall. The right half showed Lauren Cole having an argument with someone. There was still no way of recognizing the person.

It was easy to hear his voice, though.

‘You can’t cope with your mum’s death, can you?’ that voice was saying. ‘I know you can’t. You never have coped and you never will!’

‘It’s you I can’t cope with!’ That was Lauren’s voice, raised in despair. ‘Why do you have to keep following me?’

Jill watched, both horrified and fascinated, as the camera followed Lauren. She bent down to Steve’s sack and took out an axe. The shouting that followed was impossible to make out.

There was a fight, a struggle, then the axe changed hands.

Again that voice, wild, hysterical, ‘You can’t cope, Lauren. Your mum’s abandoned you. I know because she abandoned me, too. She left us. And you can’t cope!’

The camera swung round and focused on the man’s face. It caught it as he was about to bring down the axe on his daughter’s head.

Lauren had been followed out to Kelton Bridge that morning. By her own father. He’d followed her and killed her. The knowledge had Jill shaking. She felt sick, too, and grateful that she’d had to skip lunch.

‘We need to take this,’ Max told Jimmy. ‘You’ll get it back as soon as possible. You should have told us, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Too scared,’ Jimmy said.

‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ Max promised. ‘Right, run along home now. Someone will be along to talk to you later, OK?’

The lad nodded, and he looked relieved to be away from them.

They watched him as he half-walked and half-ran down the hill.

‘You were right then,’ Max said at last. ‘You said that, if we found Charlie’s collar, we’d find our killer.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Bloody amateur dramatics,’ Max said, shaking his head. ‘He should have been a pro.’

‘But to kill your own daughter.’ Jill still couldn’t take it in. ‘To him, of course, it will have been an act of kindness. He truly believed she would never cope with her mother’s death and he couldn’t bear to stand by and watch her throw her life away. But she was coping. She was healing.’

‘It seems to me it was him who couldn’t cope,’ Max said, and Jill couldn’t agree more.

‘The poor kid spent years craving love. In the end, it was love that killed her.’

For Jill’s sake, Max would be glad when Christmas arrived. She looked sick of it all, and he couldn’t blame her. Her friend and neighbour, a man she trusted and respected, had been banged up on a murder charge and then left to fight for his life. One father had almost killed his son-in-law, another had killed his daughter.

Max parked his car on Jill’s neighbour’s driveway, just behind the caravan they were using for surveillance. Darkness had fallen quickly as it always did at this time of year.

‘This is a waste of time,’ Jill said. ‘He must know I’m not staying there. Why else would he have phoned me at the office?’

‘We don’t know, do we?’

He knew that, at the moment, she wasn’t too concerned about her mysterious caller. She was still too shaken. It was one thing to learn a killer’s identity, and another to see the murder taking place before your eyes.

She felt bad, too, he knew that. As always, she believed she should have led them to the killer.

What was done was done, and there could be no bringing back of the dead. As far as Max was concerned, there was nothing but good news. They had Lauren Cole’s killer, and her father’s. Yasmin Smith was back at home with her family. They even had the odious man responsible for Steve Carlisle’s spell in hospital.

Max was still concerned about the man intent on frightening Jill, though. There was no knowing what a person capable of killing a cat could do. Look at any psychopath’s history and you’d see a history of cruelty to animals.

‘Call this off, Max,’ Jill said. ‘It’s a waste of time. He knows I’m not there.’

‘We can’t be sure of that.’ He switched off the engine. ‘Come on, let’s go and see if anything’s been happening.’

They crossed the garden to the caravan and, after knocking briefly, stepped inside PC Glover’s temporary home. There was only one very tiny light, not visible from the outside, so it was impossible to see much at all.

‘Welcome,’ the PC greeted them. ‘Come in and make yourselves at home. Sorry, I only warranted the minicaravan but there’s just about enough room to stand and drink a coffee if you want one.’

‘We’ll pass, thanks.’ Max stared out into the darkness at Jill’s cottage. Lights were on in the hall and the sitting room. ‘Anything?’

‘Not so much as a stray cat in the garden.’

Max felt Jill shudder beside him, no doubt recalling the way the little stray had been killed.

‘What with this weather,’ PC Glover said, ‘it’s not surprising the world’s deserted.’ He broke off, stared into the darkness and then shook his head. ‘In the end, you start imagining there’s someone out there.’ He tapped his fingers on the table. ‘Dammit, I’m sure I just saw something.’

Max peered out, but could see nothing.

‘By the front door,’ PC Glover said, his voice urgent now.

Still Max could see nothing.

‘The security light would come on if anyone was there,’ Jill reminded them.

‘Yeah, perhaps it was my imagination,’ Glover said. ‘Sit here long enough and you go a little bit crazy.’

They all stared into the darkness and Max knew that after an hour of this, you would be seeing aliens. Or vampires. Or any damn thing you chose.

‘What time do you finish tonight?’ he asked Glover.

‘Ten. And then I’m off till after Christmas. A whole four days and I can’t wait.’

‘Have a good one,’ Max said. ‘Thanks for the offer of coffee, but we’ll leave you to it. We’re going into the cottage to collect a few things, so don’t send the dogs in.’

‘If only I warranted a dog,’ he muttered. ‘Oh, and a happy Christmas to both of you!’ he added.

They left the relative warm of the caravan and walked up the lane. Just as they were about to turn into the drive, Max spotted movement. There was no doubt in his mind. He grabbed Jill’s arm and put a hand over her mouth as he pulled her close to the hedge.

Max had his eyes on the cottage and, this time, there was no mistaking it. There was definitely a dark moving shape at the side of her cottage.

Any minute now, the security light would come on.

They stood quite still, trying not to breathe deeply. Still no light came on. Max knew it was either faulty or had been put out of action, and he suspected the latter.

There was something else. An odd smell was being carried towards them on the cold air.

The figure moved. All in black. In the dark.

Just as a tiny spark of light appeared, Max realized what that smell was. Petrol.

‘Shit!’

He ran forward and hurled himself at the moving figure.

He was aware of a huge, heavy-duty torch being raised. He even saw it coming down at great speed towards his head.

It was the last thing he did see.