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‘It’s threatening,’ Gray said. ‘As part of a wider campaign, probably. But the Facebook post is where I’d start.’

‘Can you find out who posted it?’ Mary said.

‘Possibly,’ Gray said. ‘We can start with bicyclefreak. That’s the handle of the person who posted it. One thing we could do is to look at other posts that bicyclefreak has made and see if that gives us any clues as to who it is.’

‘Is there a way to look at the IP address, or something like that?’ Ryan said.

‘That gets more tricky,’ Gray replied. ‘I’ll get one of the officers who’s more technically savvy to take a look, but I’m pretty sure we will be able to track down the person who posted this, eventually.’

‘What about the notes?’ Mary said.

‘More?’ Gray said.

Mary nodded. ‘Yes, and the tone has changed.’

Gray read them. ‘They’re definitely becoming more personal, and more threatening.’ He held up the note with the photo of the dog. ‘This is very unpleasant.’ Gray looked at Ryan’s phone. ‘The Facebook post feels different to the notes,’ he said. ‘The notes are subtle and clever and designed – at least to my mind – to unsettle you. The beach photo is crude. It’s designed to humiliate you.’

‘So you don’t think it’s the same person?’ Ryan said.

‘I’m not saying that,’ Gray replied. ‘Only that if it is the same person, there’s an inconsistency in what they are doing.’

‘If it isn’t,’ Mary said. ‘That would mean there are two people, who, suddenly, for no apparent reason, and at the exact same time, have both decided to start sending me anonymous notes or posting vaguely pornographic images of me on a public forum. I just don’t see that happening. This has to be the same person.’

Gray nodded. ‘I would tend to agree. It just feels like there’s something very different about this photo.’ He looked at Mary, then at Ryan. ‘What would be useful would be any names you have of people who may have done it. That narrows things – we can start with them.’

Mary looked up at the ceiling. ‘There is one person,’ she said.

Gray sat forward. ‘Who?’

‘Dylan Therriault.’ She folded her arms.

‘I know him,’ Gray said. ‘He won’t be up for Barrow’s Citizen of the Year award. Why would he be involved?’

‘Sally was dating him. It’s a long story, but I broke them up. And afterwards I found out they had been having sex.’

There was a long pause. ‘That is illegal,’ Gray said.

‘I know, and I confronted him,’ Mary said. ‘He denied it, and became very aggressive. And then a few hours later’ – she motioned to the phone – ‘this happens.’

‘Had you had other arguments with him?’ Gray said.

‘Not like today. But he knew I didn’t approve.’

‘So he would have reason to try and upset you,’ Gray said. ‘And it wouldn’t be out of character at all.’ He paused. ‘Where was the first note? It was on a pole next to the green, right?’

Mary nodded.

‘And he hangs out at the bandstand two hundred feet away,’ Gray said. ‘So he could easily be watching.’

Mary thought back to the day she had found the note. Had she looked at the bandstand? Was Dylan there? If he had been, she was sure she would have noticed him, but perhaps he was concealing himself. It was hard to remember.

But it made a lot of sense.

‘I’ll look into him,’ Gray said. ‘But I’m starting to see a picture emerging here. Anyone else?’

‘Maybe,’ Ryan said. ‘We talked last time about Carl, and I don’t think anything has really changed. He’s the kind of person who would know how to create an AI image like this.’

‘That’s not much,’ Gray said. ‘That said, I did look into his past and I found some’ – he paused – ‘interesting things.’