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confirmation later this morning but it looks like it’s kosher. It’s from our man.”
    Shannon nodded. “Anything else?”
    Millie racked her brain and wished she had made more notes. “Postmark indicates it was processed at the Scarbeck sorting office on Monday evening and delivered to Croft this morning. It must have been collected from the post box by no later than seven last night, which means The Handshaker probably mailed it off before he murdered Susan Edwards.” Millie laid candid eyes on him. “Croft is definitely in the clear.”
    Shannon gave a dismissive snort. “Pah. Croft is a pain in the arse. An arrogant sod, and I’ll tell you something else, whether or not this note came from The Handshaker, I know what Croft’s game is. Like I said in the interview room, he’s trying to spark some interest in his efforts so he can hog the limelight again. Bloody celebrities.”
    Millie waited for the irritation to expire. “You think so, do you?”
    There was a knock on the door, stifling Shannon’s next words. A uniformed constable entered and left two mugs of tea on Shannon’s desk. When he had backed out, the superintendent took a large swallow of tea and scowled. “What the hell do they use in this stuff? Bromide?”
    “Never mind the tea,” Millie rebuked him. “Do you want to know what I found out about Croft?”
    “No, but I imagine you’re gonna tell me anyway.”
    Millie took up her sheets of paper, sipped at her own tea and, privately agreeing with Shannon’s analysis on the canteen’s lack of culinary expertise, suppressed a grimace.
    Skimming through the papers, she marshalled her thoughts for a moment and left the uppermost documents resting on her lap where she could refer to them.
    “He’s exactly who he said he is,” she began. “Thirty-seven years old, the youngest son of Sir James Croft, of the Queen’s Bench Division. He was schooled at Loxley, barely scraped into Leeds, flunked law and chose English instead, and that caused some kind of rift between him and his father, and we all know what a hard-nosed old bastard his honour can be, don’t we. He has an older brother, David, who’s a barrister, and as we know, he lives with Patricia Sinclair; another legal bitch. After graduating, he went into teaching, and got drawn into hypnosis somewhere along the line. Did some basic training in hypnotherapy, then hooked up with industry, specialising in motivation, and he made millions from a string of self-help books. The weight control one was the best seller and the one that made him so famous. He maintains several non-executive directorships in large companies, and he’s been a senior research fellow at the UNWE for the last six or seven years, recently promoted to Head of Department, researching parapsychology. He owns a huge house called Oaklands, near Allington Village, which he bought from Scarbeck Borough Council for exactly one pound.”
    She paused a moment to see how Shannon would react to that piece of news. He did not react at all, and she went on, “He had to spend a million or two on the place to bring it up to habitable standards. When it comes to hypnosis and the abuse of hypnosis, there is no better authority. His researches are into the possibilities of enhancing psychic potential through the use of hypnosis. That’s telepathy and seeing ghosts and UFOs and stuff. When he’s not working, he does crosswords and sudokus for the joy of it, he compiles cryptic crosswords and they’re supposed to be absolute bastards to crack, and he’s a prominent member of an online Scrabble club. He had a reputation with the ladies once, but Sinclair probably kicked that out of him.” Millie grinned. “She’s that kind of woman. He ducked out of the public eye when he took up his post at the University of North West England, and said he never wanted to be back in it. All in all, Ernie, the last thing he’s looking for is publicity. He doesn’t need to be tagged onto a police