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coast was remote. A boat could easily sail in unnoticed. Perhaps the girls were foreign. If they were dead on arrivalin the UK, maybe someone had buried them in the first accessible spot . . . Except that made no sense. Why would anyone bother when it was so much easier to chuck a body overboard while you were out in deep water?
    Calling the room to order, she was about to start the briefing when Detective Superintendent Ron Naylor suddenly appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of green wellington boots and a three-quarter-length parka jacket covered in fresh snow.
    ‘Decided to have myself a little trip to the seaside,’ he said.
    Bearing in mind his appearance, his comment sounded ridiculous.
    Everyone laughed, Naylor included.
    He extracted something from his pocket and held it out to Kate with a curious look on his face. Her personal mail: three postcards from three different locations, the same message on each, just four words – Are You Hungry Yet? Each card signed with a flamboyant: F .
    Fiona Fielding .
    Kate could feel herself blushing. These cryptic messages had been dropping into her in-tray with alarming regularity in recent months, sent by an artist who was never far away from her consciousness of late.
    Gormley was grinning.
    He knew she and Fielding had more than a love of fine art in common.
    Popping the cards into her bag, Kate made a mental note to text the artist her home address. She couldn’t keep receiving these curious messages at work. It was funny but rather embarrassing too. It had to stop.
    Taking off his coat, Naylor shook it violently and hung it over an open cupboard door. DC Andy Brown passed him a mug of somethinghot. The Super sat down, cradling the cup in his huge hands, confirming what the team already knew. There was little to be done until the results of the postmortem were in.
    ‘And then there were two,’ the DCI said sadly. ‘Abbey filled you in, I take it?’
    Naylor nodded. ‘She’s gone with the bodies to the morgue. Her team will continue digging in the morning. For now the scene is secure with an officer posted on overnight watch. Shit duty for some poor sod, but we have to assume there could be more until we’re told otherwise. For all we know that’s a mass grave out there.’
    ‘What a cheery thought.’ Kate drew in a big breath, wishing they were back at the purpose-built major incident suite in Newcastle. Something was telling her she would need its state-of-the-art technology at her fingertips. ‘I’m already regretting my decision to run the incident from here.’ She sighed, looking around her. ‘What a dog’s bollocks!’
    ‘What’s up with you?’ Naylor said. ‘It’s not that bad!’
    Either Abbey hadn’t told him or Naylor was being very understanding .
    Kate cleared her throat. ‘I hadn’t realized the first one was a kid, guv.’
    ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it. You weren’t to know. You called it as you saw it. I’d have done the same in your shoes.’
    She thanked him for being so understanding, adding, ‘The second victim is a little older. Mid-teens is Abbey’s best guess. Knowing her, it’ll be spot on.’
    ‘Is she ever wrong?’ Naylor made a face. ‘Bloody woman gets right up my nose.’
    ‘What is it with you and her, guv?’ Gormley asked. ‘You got history we don’t know about?’
    ‘You are joking?’ Naylor’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘She’d eat me for breakfast!’
    Ignoring their banter, Kate moved on.
    ‘Lisa ran the unsolved cases through the system, guv. There are none where two young kids went missing together. The press are going to be all over this if we don’t keep a lid on it.’ Kate wondered why he’d come, what on earth possessed him to venture out in such atrocious weather. He normally ran from encounters with Abbey Hunt and there were easier ways of being briefed on a new case. Unlike her former boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Bright, Naylor had never been one to interfere.