Ainhoa Elizasu was the second victim of the basajaun, although the press were yet to coin that name for him. That came later, when it emerged that animal hairs, scraps of skin and unidentifiable tracks had been found around the bodies, along with evidence of some kind of macabre purification rite. With their torn clothes, their private parts shaved and their upturned hands, the bodies of those girls, almost still children, seemed to have been marked by a malign force, as old as the Earth.

Inspector Amaia Salazar always followed the same routine when she was called to a crime scene in the middle of the night. She would switch off the alarm clock so it wouldn’t disturb James in the morning, pile up her clothes and, with her mobile balanced on top of them, go very slowly downstairs to the kitchen. She would drink a milky coffee while she dressed, leave a note for her husband and get in the car. Then she would drive, her mind blank except for the white noise that always filled her head when she woke up before dawn.

These remnants of an interrupted night of insomnia stayed with her all the way to the crime scene, even though it was over an hour’s drive from Pamplona. She took a curve in the road too sharply and the squealing of the tyres made her realise how distracted she was. After that she made herself pay attention to the motorway as it wound its way upwards, deep into the dense forest surrounding Elizondo. Five minutes later, she pulled over next to a police sign, where she recognised Dr Jorge San Martín’s sports car and Judge Estébanez’s off-roader. Amaia got out, walked round to the back of her car and fished out a pair of wellingtons. She sat on the edge of the boot to pull them on while Deputy Inspector Jonan Etxaide and Inspector Montes joined her.

‘It’s not looking good, chief, the victim’s a young girl,’ Jonan consulted his notes, ‘twelve or thirteen years old. When she didn’t arrive home by eleven last night, her parents contacted the police.’

‘A bit early to report her missing,’ observed Amaia.

‘True. It looks like she rang her older brother on his mobile at about ten past eight to tell him she’d missed the bus from Arizkun.’

‘And her brother waited until eleven before saying anything?’

‘You know how it is, “Aita and Ama will kill me. Please don’t tell them. I’m going to see if any of my friends’ parents will give me a lift.” So he kept quiet and played on his PlayStation. At eleven, when he realised his sister still hadn’t arrived home and his mother was starting to get hysterical, he told them Ainhoa had called. The parents went down to the station in Elizondo and insisted something must have happened to their daughter. She wasn’t answering her mobile and they’d already spoken to all her friends. A patrol found her. The officers spotted her shoes at the side of the road as they were coming round the bend.’ Jonan shone his torch towards the edge of the tarmac where a pair of black patent high heeled shoes glistened, perfectly aligned. Amaia leaned over to look at them.

‘They look like they’ve been arranged like this. Has anyone touched them?’ she asked. Jonan checked his notes again. The young deputy inspector’s efficiency was a god-send in cases as difficult as this one was shaping up to be.

‘No, that’s how they found them, side by side and pointing towards the road.’

‘Tell the crime scene technicians to come and check the lining of the shoes when they’ve finished what they’re doing. Whoever arranged them like that will have had to touch the inside as well as the outside.’

Inspector Montes, who had stood silently staring at the ends of his Italian designer loafers until this point, looked up abruptly as if he had just awoken from a deep sleep.

‘Salazar,’ he acknowledged her in a murmur, then walked off towards the edge of the road without waiting for her. Amaia frowned in bewilderment and turned back to Jonan.

‘What’s up with him?’

‘I don’t know, chief, but we came in the same car from Pamplona and he didn’t open his mouth once. I think he might have had a drink or two.’

Amaia thought so too. Inspector Montes had slipped into a downward spiral since his divorce, and not just in terms of his recent penchant for Italian shoes and colourful ties. He had been particularly distracted during the last few weeks, cold and inscrutable, absorbed in his own little world, almost reluctant to engage with the people around him.

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