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Poe studied it. As far as he could tell there’d been a flurry of activity before the cruise with six separate deposits of twenty-five thousand pounds, followed by another three deposits the day after the cruise: one of one hundred thousand pounds, one of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds and one of three hundred thousand pounds. Together, they totalled eight hundred thousand exactly.

‘Is there a withdrawals sheet?’ Poe asked.

‘Page two,’ Rhona replied.

He turned the page and read on. There’d been two withdrawals: a cheque for nine thousand pounds made payable to the Seven Pines Children’s Home, and a cash withdrawal of seven hundred and ninety-one thousand pounds made by Quentin Carmichael. With the balance at zero, the account had been closed.

What the hell had he been up to?

‘I see that the deposits into this account were all by cheque or bank transfer, Rhona,’ Poe said. ‘Any chance you can get me a list?’

She looked uncertain. ‘I’ll need to check your warrant covers that.’

‘You do that,’ Poe said.

Being the good employee that she was, she locked her computer before she left the room. Poe smiled. It was as if she’d known he’d have spun the monitor round the second she was gone.

It didn’t matter, though. The bank manager had checked with head office, and if someone had made a deposit into the account on the warrant, their name could be shared with the police. If Poe subsequently needed to dig into the accounts of someone on that list, they would need another warrant.

Rhona printed off another document.

This one had names on.

The sudden chill in the room was palpable. Poe stared at the first five names. In his head, he added a location after each one:

Graham Russell – Castlerigg stone circle, Keswick.

Joe Lowell – Swinside stone circle, Broughton-in-Furness.

Michael James – Long Meg and Her Daughters, Penrith.

Clement Owens – Elva Plain, Cockermouth.

Sebastian Doyle – the body in Quentin Carmichael’s coffin.

Five men.

Five victims.

Poe had his connection.

They’d all deposited twenty-five thousand pounds into Carmichael’s account before the cruise, and three of them had subsequently made additional, more sizeable donations after the event. Sebastian Doyle, the man Poe had found in Quentin Carmichael’s coffin, had made the largest deposit – three hundred thousand pounds – and Michael James had made the smallest at a measly one hundred thousand. Clement Owens was in the middle with two hundred and fifty thousand.

&n

bsp; The sixth man on the list was called Montague Price. Like Joe Lowell and Graham Russell, he’d made a twenty-five thousand pounds deposit before the cruise but nothing afterwards.

He’d have to get Flynn to check the HOLMES 2 database that Cumbria were managing, but Poe was sure Price hadn’t come up in the investigation so far. To be fair, until they’d burnt to death, none of the others had either.

Poe and Bradshaw looked at each other in bewildered silence. Reid was still studying the list. From the outset Poe had struggled to accept the men were being randomly selected, but never in his wildest dreams had he thought he’d find proof so absolute.

What he had in his hands was a death list.

Reid was staring at the document. His face was grim. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘You’ve found it.’

Bradshaw was looking excited and scared. Sometimes when the big cases broke, the feeling was overwhelming.

‘What do you think this means, Poe?’ she asked.