'What did you see?' Erica asked Carly in a sympathetic voice, 25 minutes into the episode. Rita was always impressed listening to these shows at how perfect they always managed to get the sound. Police workplace recordings and presentations, no matter what the country, suffered from a myriad of quality issues.

'They were all sitting in a circle surrounded by black candles. They all had black masks on with devil horns,' Carly said. Rita could see what Subeera had meant about her. 'I saw a Christian child lying on an altar. Someone handed me a cup of red liquid and told me to drink it. I tasted it and it was blood.'

'Sorry, Carly. I'm gonna say it straight up. I'm having trouble.' Donna sounded not just disbelieving but livid.

'Trouble with what?' Carly said innocently.

'Thing is.' Donna's voice was cold. 'There is something called the Satanic Panic. It's something we have discussed on the show before. People got falsely accused of being Satanists and participating in dark rituals. They had their lives ruined and their kids taken away for no good reason. So I'm having...difficulty accepting this.' She let out a frustrated breath. 'And - do you see why this might remind people of the Blood Libel? You said this head honcho of theirs was Jewish?'

Carly's voice was childlike. 'What's the Blood Libel?'

'It's a legend from hundreds of years ago saying Jews drank children's blood,' Donna snarled with sudden, vicious anger. 'These stories can kill people -'

'But he did drink someone's blood. I saw him. Are you saying you don't believe me?'

'Look, Carly.' Donna spoke in a tight, furious voice. She sounded shaken; this was clearly personal. Rita sympathised. The car crash interview was making her physically squirm. 'We have debunked many conspiracy theories down the years and this is a textbook example. If it was entirely down to me and not the production company I'd pull the plug on this interview right now.'

'They had a tapestry on the wall depicting the devil himself,' Carly insisted. 'Just because you cannot see demonic forces, does not mean they do not exist. It is only thanks to the grace of God that I escaped. Evil lives in this world. You can't see it. That's not my fault.'

'Carly,' Erica said, her voice gentle and diplomatic. 'Can you tell me how you escaped? We'll come back to this.'

'No,' Carly said. 'She's calling me a liar. I want to discuss it now.'

Rita paused the podcast, unsure how much more of this she could take. Her train had now stood stationary between stops for twenty minutes. The driver had announced there was a fault with the signalling and they would be on the move 'imminently'. She had a nagging urge to go to the bathroom and it was uncomfortable being squashed into the window.

'Excuse me,' Rita said to the man next to her, gathering her stuff and standing up. He grunted and took ages to shift himself out of his seat. She walked to the nearest set of carriage doors and shut herself into the toilet. She sat down and searched the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ on Google where nobody could look over her shoulder. The plethora of results the search brought up were sickening but to Rita's mind, unsurprising. The cult had crossed a line beyond inflammatory preaching into actively setting out to terrify people.

''Hate preachers' fined £250 for harassing shoppers'

'Pride marchers subjected to 'disgusting' homophobic abuse by fundamentalist sect'

'Man who lost family in Gaza heckled by 'cult' as fundraising event ends in chaos'

Rita selected the first result, her heart sinking. The shopping incident had taken place in Plumstead, where Alfonso was staying alone tonight. Somehow that made it worse. She wished she'd been more persistent in getting him to come up with her.

Something cold passed through her.

'A group of 'hate preachers' who launched a 'campaign of intimidation' based on an extreme interpretation of the Bible have escaped prison and been fined £250 for harassing and threatening shoppers. In one case, children aged 6 and 8 were left in tears after a member of the Abundant Blessing Church of Christ told them that their mother would die and burn in hell for not believing in God.

In response, the church issued a statement maintaining that its members' arrest and sentencing was an 'attack on free speech' against 'righteous Christians who were only trying to deliver the gospel.'

But ex-members of the group have described extremist rhetoric, abuse and indoctrination. One ex-member who refused to be identified said, 'They think anyone who does not live as they do is demonic. They are completely radicalised. I am scared they are planning something violent.''

Once she was done Rita wandered back through the aisle with her bags until she found her seat. The man beside her had taken her spot by the window. She squashed her emotions down to focus on the annoyance. She opened the notes app on her phone and created a new file called 'Erica'. She pulled her phone close to her face, concealing the screen from any prying eyes, then set up 2 factor authentication on the document. The first thing she wrote was 'Speak to Donna'.

Then, she began entering names. Carly Hill. Jon Phillips. She hesitated a moment, then wrote Matteo Cadiz, still feeling awkward and sad about it.

So far, they were her top three.

*

It was 6pm by the time Rita's train got in. It was dark and the air was crisp and cold. Heather had told her that before going to the restaurant, she was hanging out in a pub opposite the station called the Three Dragons. Rita spotted the pub straight away. Her bag was heavy and she regretted taking so many clothes if she was only staying one night.

When she opened the pub's heavy door, she was instantly hit by a blast of warm, alcohol suffused air.It was busy on a Saturday night. Most of the punters were middle aged but by the door there was a table of young people drinking, surrounded by balloons saying '20' on them. Rita smiled, feeling slightly sad. She hadn't been 20 for a very long time. She couldn't remember having that many friends back then. She glanced around for Heather and spotted a Basset hound, lying under a table where two old men sat with pints of beer.

As she walked towards the back of the pub something thumped her on the shoulder. It would have made her jump had she not recognised Heather's voice. She turned around to see her friend holding hands with a tall, thin woman with close cropped hair and glasses. The previous times she had met Heather she'd had gold hooped earrings but she had swapped these out for tiny multicoloured birds. Both women had glasses of beer in their hands.

'Rita! How are you my love?' Heather said, putting her beer down on a sticky table and hugging her. 'Cheers for coming up. So glad you could make it. This is my wife, Aimee. Aimee - this is my friend Rita. We worked together on the Henry Dixon case.' Aimee nodded at Rita and shook her hand. She had a tattoo of a hairy orange and black beetle on her wrist.

'I'm good.' Rita smiled. Heather had a way of putting people at ease - she definitely put her at ease. 'Until the delay, the journey was fine. Quite easy.'

'Still, you got here in the end, didn't you.' Aimee let out a throaty laugh. Without even trying, Rita could smell the nicotine on her. If she had one cigarette, surely it wouldn't be so bad. And she'd be saving Aimee from herself, wouldn't she? 'Great to meet you. Can I get you a drink?'

'Maybe some cider, it's a rare treat for me,' Rita said. 'What time is the meal?'

'Table's booked for 7.30,' Heather said. 'Enough time for a swift half, I think. Or two.'

As Aimee disappeared into the queue at the bar, Rita and Heather walked towards a wooden door at the back of the pub. As Rita stepped through she quickly checked her phone to make sure the document was still there.

'Out here, look,' Heather said, as they stepped into a beer garden. The air was chilly and slightly damp. An elderly couple were sitting in a small hut in the garden on the other side of some picnic tables. There was a small bar in the beer garden with very slow service.

'This is my mam and dad,' Heather said, indicating the elderly couple as she sat down in the heated cabin. Rita moved up next to Heather's dad who grinned a gappy smile. His metal walking stick was propped up beside him on the other side to her, and he was nurturing a pint of beer. 'This is Rita, she's come all the way from sunny Spain. When you inviting me and Aimee for a visit, eh?'

'You can come any time. My flat is ready, with no unexpected guests,' Rita grinned.

Heather burst out laughing. 'Remember I told you about Pepelito, Mam? Rita hid him in her flat.'

Heather's mother smiled at Rita. She was a tiny, grey haired woman with glasses. 'That's good of you,' she said in a strong Yorkshire accent. 'About time somebody did summat about animal cruelty. It breaks my heart more than anything else in the world.' She nudged her husband as she drank a herbal tea. 'We would have done it, right, Bob? We would have taken him in.'

'Oh, aye,' Bob muttered, picking at a shared bowl of chips in the middle of the table. 'As long as he didn't eat all our food, he could stay as long as he liked, couldn't he, Trish.'

'They've got bird feeders and a wildlife pond,' Heather grinned, and Rita felt envious. Her little flat didn't have a garden. Where she lived, she could not afford so much space. Aimee was coming back with the drinks, cider and lagers on a tray. Heather muttered 'Squish up,' to Aimee, who perched on the edge of the wooden bench opposite Rita.

'How have things been with you, Rita love,' Heather said when Aimee had been able to properly shove herself onto the bench. 'Where's Dominguez? He promised me a visit.'

'There are cuts in the department,' Rita said. 'Changes to our pensions. A lot of admin staff might get made redundant. And of course, we're both upset about this, Jesús particularly. It's...' she swallowed. She knew Heather, but she didn't know anyone else, so she spoke cautiously. 'Probably a good thing I'm away. It's nice to see you. I'm looking forward to the restaurant.'

'I tell you, I need a good night out,' Heather sighed and took a sip of her lager. 'These last few weeks at work have been horrible. We have a new serial killer, except I'm not officially allowed to call our perp that.'

'Henry Dixon level?' Rita said, her heart sinking.

Heather nodded grimly. 'Yeah. It's bad. And then yesterday some absolute...spanner of a DCI in Sheffield said that it was caused by women in short skirts, even though all our victims bar one are men. We now have to distance ourselves from his comments. It's turned into a story about sexism in the police. It'll run for days and days.' She sighed. 'I've a week off before I start the new job. Small mercies.'

'Is Subeera coming to the meal, Hev?' Aimee said, finishing the last of the chips.

'No, she messaged me this morning. Said she's having problems at work, needs time to herself.' Heather sighed. 'I told her to take some time off and spend it with her family. When her uncle got killed, I said, Subeera please, for the love of God, let them know you want some time off, but she just put pressure on herself to carry on working.' She looked at Rita. 'Have you heard anything?'

'I met her yesterday.' Rita sipped her cider. 'Yeah. She'd probably appreciate a text.'

'I'm going for a fag,' Aimee said, getting up. She squeezed Heather's hand and kissed her on the cheek.

'You're supposed to be giving up,' Heather scoffed. 'Give us a sec, I'll come join you. Then last one for today. Time to be good.'

'When have you ever been good, Hev?' Aimee said fondly. It gave Rita a pang. Seeing these two together, so clearly made for each other, reminded her of how much she missed Alfonso. She took her phone out and sent him a quick text telling him how much she missed him. He hadn't seen her previous one. Hopefully that meant he and Lina were having a good time.

'Do we need to go soon?' Rita asked them. 'It's 7.20.'

Heather shrugged and drained her glass, then clambered away from the wooden bench. 'Eh, we've got time. Just down the road.'

'That poor girl who was murdered in London, Bob,' Heather's mum Trish said to her husband, staring at her phone. Rita noticed that her right hand had a slight tremor. 'There's more on the news. They just found her clothes. Just don't go telling our lass.' She hissed in a stage whisper, 'She's like a dog with a bone, is our Heather. She'll want to investigate.'

Rita smiled, feeling self conscious. 'Yeah.'

Trish finished the rest of her tea and daintily ate the last chip from the shared bowl. 'Here. This article on the BBC says - Erica Scott's clothes were found in a bag by a group of schoolboys on the London Underground. Handed into lost property two days ago but they're only just releasing it to the public.'

'Poor woman. Her poor family.' Bob finished his glass of lager and set it down on the table.

'Did you say Erica Scott? Can you show me, please?' Rita said, a queasy feeling filling her chest.

'Of course, love,' Trish said, passing her phone over. 'How awful. It says the bag also had a knife in it.'

AN: The killer that Heather is investigating here will be featured in my book starring her, 'Fly Away Home'. I'll also have this scene from Heather's POV in that story.