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Reynolds turned his back on Shipcott and looked instead at the moor, which rose behind the pub and beyond the stream where Jonas Holly had found a body held motionless in the ice. It all seemed like an empty stage where a murderous play had once been performed, because on a day like this it was almost impossible to imagine anything bad happening here. The azure sky, the dew glittering on the bright gorse and the sheer silence made it feel like the set of a film – one of those Jane Austen things that were always on BBC Four. Their scenery always seemed as fanciful to him as their plots, but Exmoor in early summer was just such a place, captured in time. A rock moved just below the close horizon, and Reynolds’s eyes adjusted to pick out the small group of deer grazing close to the skyline.

Calmed by the sight, Reynolds felt the jigsaw take shape in his mind. Now that he’d met Jess Took’s father, he was leaning towards the personal revenge motive, rather than the sexual. That was good. Really good. If Jess Took had been stolen for ransom or revenge, the chances of getting her back alive were vastly improved. And success instead of failure in a kidnapping case would look so much better on his record.

Yes, revenge was the most likely scenario and the one that was liable to have the most positive outcome. On a day like this, one couldn’t help being optimistic.

Rice walked across the car park towards him, and was opening her mouth to say something when her phone suddenly latched on to a passing signal and burst into life.

She took it from her pocket and frowned at the caller ID, then waited until it stopped ringing and put it back in her pocket.

Must be Eric.

Reynolds thought Rice had broken up with Eric. He wasn’t sure, but a few months back there’d been a time when he’d noticed she was often red-eyed in the mornings and she’d taken some personal days. This was not the first time since then that he’d seen her fail to answer her phone.

He was glad that signals on the moor were so appalling. The last thing he needed was Rice being weepy and distracted by boyfriend troubles while they were trying to find Jess Took.

The deer moved off over the rise, each silhouetted briefly against the sky before dropping out of sight. At the summit, the big male turned and looked over its shoulder, straight at him. Detective Inspector Reynolds felt himself unexpectedly moved. It felt like a benediction – like a promise of success.

This would be different. This was already different. A serial killer of the old and infirm was not a kidnapper of children. And he was in charge now – not some throwback who didn’t even have a degree.

He would work it out; Jess Took would be found; he would be a hero; he would lay to rest the hoodoo of the killer in the snow.

* * *

It turned out that John Took didn’t have any money after all. He was simply very good at spending other people’s. Of the nine people on the list he’d given them, eight were creditors – four of whom had made actual threats, ranging from ‘Watch your back’ to ‘I’ll burn your bloody house down.’

By Tuesday lunchtime, Reynolds and Rice had spoken to all four of those. Three had alibis that were easy to check. Early on Saturday mornings, even country folk were trying to lie in past 7am, and most had partners and/or children to prove it.

The fourth, Mike Haddon, was a local blacksmith. He was not tall, so his muscles had nowhere to go but outwards, giving him the appearance of a body-builder stretched to fit a widescreen TV.

He flicked through a filthy hardbacked diary with hands so huge and gnarled and ingrained with blackness that Reynolds almost admired them. They were Hulk hands, only not green.

‘Two on the twelfth, another two on the twenty-second,’ Haddon was saying, as he turned the pages to show them his dense writing. ‘Three on the second – and that included that bloody Scotty I always charge extra for ’cos he kicks and leans. Another two on the sixteenth and one more on the twenty-third—’

‘I see what you’re saying,’ Reynolds interrupted. He could tell that if he didn’t stop him, Haddon was going to take them through every unpaid set of horseshoes, and they still weren’t out of January. ‘What does he owe you in total?’

‘Eleven hundred and ninety pounds.’

‘Bloody hell!’ said Rice. ‘How much are the shoes?’

‘Sixty-five quid for a standard set, more if they want studs or bars, and they’re replaced every six or eight weeks.’

Rice’s mouth dropped open and Reynolds was amused to see her groping for some grasp on the sheer waste of shoe-money. As for himself, he wondered whether it was really enough to motivate abduction.

‘That doesn’t seem like an awful lot,’ he mused.

‘Is to me,’ said Haddon with a disparaging look. ‘Would be to you too, if you’d earned it in the snow with a half ton of horse on your bloody back.’

He had a point.

‘So you threatened Mr Took?’

Haddon was still for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Yur.’