Langton put the girl’s details to one side and went back to the files of missing prostitutes in their late thirties and early forties. He studied the photos of their beat-up looking faces intently. He took note that many of the women in this file were European; some were Russian.

Langton’s detective sergeant, Mike Lewis, interrupted his concentration. ‘She doesn’t fit the profile.’ He leaned across the desk and picked up Melissa’s photograph.

‘Yeah, I know. That’s why I put her to one side.’

At first, the team had concentrated their search on the local area, but now the net had spread to include Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow. They were monitoring missing persons for women with similar profiles to the victims. It was sick, but it was all Langton could do; a fresh victim might provide the vital clue that would lead them to the serial killer.

‘Did you hear about Hudson?’ asked Lewis.

‘No. What about him?’

‘He called in sick. He was taken to hospital. May be serious.’

‘Shit! The Boss is already checking us out. We’ll lose half the team if we don’t get a result soon.’

‘He might be out for a while.’

Langton lit a cigarette. ‘Get someone in to cover him, and fast.’

‘OK.’

An hour later Lewis placed half a dozen folders on Langton’s desk.

‘Christ! Is this all you could come up with?’ Langton complained.

‘It’s all they’ve got.’

‘Leave them with me. I’ll get back to you.’

Lewis shut the door and went back to his desk. Langton started to glance through possible replacements for Hudson. The first file belonged to an officer he had worked with before, and didn’t get along with. He opened the next one.

Detective Sergeant Anna Travis’s file was certainly impressive. After graduating from Oxford University in economics she had done the usual eighteen weeks’ training at Hendon, then taken a uniform posting with a response team. Towards the end of her probationary period she had been attached to the local borough CID Robbery and Burglary Squad before switching to the Crime Squad. A memo from her superintendent underlined in red that Travis was a very ‘proactive’ officer.