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‘These are Howard Teasdale’s credit card statements. I’ve looked at the last six years. He had his shopping and takeaways delivered and everything else came from Amazon or other specialist online providers. His social life is entirely on social media. His main activities were gaming and collecting pornography. Other than his court appearances for possessing indecent images of children and the subsequent sex offender’s course he was forced to attend, he rarely left his flat.’

She pulled out one of Teasdale’s statements and put it face up on the table. She’d highlighted a number of transactions.

‘Except, that is, for a two-week period in September three years ago. As you can see, there are several purchases in Carlisle, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the middle of the day. Food and drink mainly. He ate at KFC six times. There are also daily receipts for train tickets.’

‘And it wasn’t work related?’

&

nbsp; ‘No, Detective Superintendent Nightingale. For that two-week period Howard Teasdale worked on his web design business in the evenings. Whatever he was doing in Carlisle, it wasn’t work.’

‘Could have been any number of reasons,’ Coughlan said.

‘I agree, Dave Coughlan, but it was an anomaly and that’s what I look for – things out of the ordinary.’

She rifled through the documents again, this time pulling out a bank statement. It was Amanda Simpson’s. It looked like she had one of those interest-free basic accounts designed for people with low credit scores. She’d have been able to deposit and access her money but she wouldn’t have had an overdraft facility.

‘I couldn’t find train ticket payments for Amanda Simpson, but given that she had a car that’s not surprising. She doesn’t use her bank card to pay for petrol so that was no help, but what I did find was this.’

She pointed at a single highlighted line on the bank statement. It was an outgoing payment to Accessorise in the Lanes Shopping Centre in Carlisle. Bradshaw had cross-checked with the store’s records and Amanda had bought three hair scrunchies, whatever they were.

‘For at least one of the days Howard Teasdale was in Carlisle, so was Amanda Simpson,’ Bradshaw said.

She turned over another document. This time it was an HSBC Premier Account statement belonging to Rebecca Pridmore. Sure enough there was a payment made in Carlisle in the same two-week period. Again, Bradshaw had checked with the store: it was a blouse from Marks and Spencer.

‘Carlisle’s the only city in Cumbria,’ Nightingale said. ‘Travelling from the south of the county to shop there is hardly errant behaviour, especially for a fashion-conscious young woman. And Rebecca Pridmore lived on the outskirts anyway. She’d have visited most weeks. I go in most weeks and I live in Appleby.’

Nightingale seemed disappointed. But then again, she didn’t know what they knew yet.

‘I’m not saying that Rebecca and Amanda popped in to do some shopping, Detective Superintendent Nightingale, I’m saying that they all spent the same two-week period in Carlisle.’

The room went silent.

‘You’d better explain, Tilly,’ Poe said.

‘Weekends excepted, Howard Teasdale went to Carlisle every day in that period. The train receipts are conclusive.’

She opened her laptop and turned it so everyone could see the screen.

‘Amanda Simpson was working at an independent clothes shop. This is her annual leave card. As you can see, she booked time off for the same two weeks that Howard was in Carlisle.’

‘And Rebecca Pridmore,’ Nightingale said, ‘was she on leave at the same time?’

‘She wasn’t, Detective Superintendent Nightingale. Her leave record shows she spent two weeks in Portugal in July and a week in Paris in November that year. Her bank statements support this.’

‘But …’

‘But I don’t think she was at work, either.’

She brought up Rebecca Pridmore’s credit card statements for the preceding six months.

‘Travelling from Dalston to BAE systems in Barrow-in Furness is a daily journey of one hundred and sixty-eight miles. Taking a median working month of twenty-one point seven five days that’s a monthly commute of three thousand six hundred and fifty-four miles.’

‘No wonder her marriage was fucked,’ Flynn muttered.

‘According to the manufacturer’s website, the average miles-per-gallon for her Range Rover is twenty-nine to forty-four on a motorway. The fuel tank capacity is just less than twenty gallons so if we assume an average miles-per-gallon of thirty-six and a half she would have to fill up every four days. Which is supported by what her bank statements say. Sometimes it’s five days, sometimes it’s four.’

‘But she didn’t fill up in the two-week period we’re interested in?’ Flynn said.