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‘That’s how I’d have done it anyway,’ Poe added.

‘I want the Midnight Mass crowd interviewed,’ Nightingale said. ‘All of them. Today if possible. I want to know if there was anyone there they didn’t recognise. Helen, can you arrange?’

‘Will do, ma’am,’ a woman in a suit said.

‘Let me know if you need more people. Paul, CSI is still processing the crime scene, right?’

‘They are,’ a man near the front said.

‘Get them to check anywhere someone could have hidden for a few minutes after Midnight Mass ended. It’s possible he slipped up and there was some forensic transfer.’

‘I’ll phone them now, ma’am.’

CSI Paul left to make his call and Nightingale tapped her laptop again.

The screen changed.

‘The last crime scene: Fiskin’s Food Hall in Whitehaven. They open for an hour each Boxing Day to draw the meat raffle.’

It was the interior of what a lot of old-fashioned butchers had had to diversify into. Big pieces of meat still hung on hooks, dark red haunches and forelegs marbled with tallow and suet. Steaks and hams and streaky bacon were still displayed on artificial grass. But there were also tables piled high with jams and biscuits and olive oils and balsamic vinegars and other things Poe thought had no business being in his favourite type of shop. There was even a salad bar.

The screen changed again, this time to the cooked meat counter. It was glass fronted and full of sliced ham, fancy coleslaws and pies. And right in the middle, nestled between the sausage rolls and the sliced black pudding, was yet another pair of fingers.

These ones were podgy and the nails were bitten to the quick. The amputation looked less clinical than the previous crime scenes. The ends of the bones were splintered and the skin was torn and messy.

Poe thought they looked male.

The perpetrator had affixed a folded A4 sheet, displaying the now familiar #BSC6, to a white plastic price tag. Nightingale’s next photograph, of the A4 page unfolded and straightened and next to a CSI forensic ruler, could have been mistaken for the one from the church – they seemed identical.

‘The killer was caught on the shop’s CCTV but his face was well covered. He waited until Mick Fiskin was drawing the raffle and simply walked behind the counter and placed the fingers in among the cooked goods. Bold as brass

. He then walked out with the crowd when it was all over. It’s a good fifteen minutes before anyone notices what he’s done. We have someone trawling through the CCTV in Whitehaven but it’s not saturated. We aren’t hopeful.’

Nightingale turned off the monitor and everyone settled in their seats.

‘Obviously we have hundreds of photographs and CSI are at all three scenes, but these are the highlights. Questions?’

‘The fingers, are they from one person or six?’ Flynn asked.

‘We think three. We’ll confirm soon but the pairs seem to match visually. We’re fairly sure one is male and two are female.’

‘You’ve been referring to the perpetrator as “our killer”, ma’am,’ Poe said. ‘I assume you don’t think this is just a sick prank?’

Nightingale shook her head.

‘The pathologist found one finger on each pair had something called “vital reaction” – that’s what happens to living tissue when there’s trauma. Inflammation, clotting, the presence of a range of chemicals that wouldn’t be there if they’d been removed after the victim had died. The other finger didn’t show vital reaction, which means it was taken some time after death.’

‘Assuming the fingers in each pair are from the same person then, this man wants us to know these are murders,’ Poe said. ‘If the fingers were all removed before death, they could have potentially been stolen after a legitimate surgical procedure. If they were all removed after death occurred, it could have been medical students or someone messing around at the mortuary or funeral parlour.’

Nightingale nodded. ‘That’s our assessment too.’

‘You’ve not found or identified the victims yet, I assume?’

‘No victims, no IDs,’ Nightingale confirmed. ‘Any more questions?’

Poe had several but he’d wait until he’d read the file. He kept his hand down.

‘OK, then. If the SCAS guys can stay behind, everyone else can get back to work.’