‘The estate agents ought to be able to give us that, too.’

‘Right. And house-to-house is complete, but as usual we should treat the results with caution.’

‘We’ve done the whole village?’

‘Yes, all of it. And we’re still getting calls from the public in response to the media appeals. Almost everything we’ve got so far has been third hand and uncorroborated, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I’ve asked the incident-room staff to collate the information and hopefully eliminate anything that’s been made up on the spot by some eager citizen trying to be too helpful.’

‘What are we left with?’

‘Well, the consensus in Foxlow is that Rose Shepherd was a retired headmistress who had been working in Scotland but came down here to live after she inherited money from an elderly relative. Some say her father, others an uncle.’

‘That would explain the purchase of Bain House, but not her secretiveness.’

‘There’s more: the word in the village is that she kept her valuables in the house, in some kind of secret stash, and that she was terrified the house might be burgled. There have been a number of break-ins in this area.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘The last tidbit is that Rose Shepherd is said to have a boyfriend back in Scotland. She called him Douglas or Dougie, and he lives near Glasgow.’

‘Has Dougie ever been seen in Foxlow?’ asked Kessen.

‘Not so far as we know.’

‘Damn it. This means we’re going to have to ask for assistance from Strathclyde Police. If they can track down a Rose Shepherd who was a headmistress in their area, it might lead us to Dougie. I’ll ask them to get Taggart on the job.’

‘There’s more. The really good news is that we’ve found someone locally who had direct contact with Miss Shepherd.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘It’s a chap by the name of Eric Grice, who seems to be some kind of handyman. He doesn’t live in Foxlow, but apparently he did occasional work at Bain House. So he’s actually spoken to the victim.’

‘Perhaps he can tell us why she hardly ever left the house.’

‘One suggestion is that she might have been suffering from agoraphobia. An irrational fear of open spaces.’

‘But she went into Matlock Bath, didn’t she?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, and nobody reported her in any distress at being outdoors. We’ve spoken to her GP’s surgery, and she only ever consulted her doctor for insomnia. She seemed to be in good health otherwise, but she hadn’t been on his list for very long. Also, the surgery don’t have access to her previous medical records. Miss Shepherd told them she’d been living abroad …’ Hitchens paused. ‘Besides, whatever Rose Shepherd was afraid of, it wasn’t an irrational fear. The bullets that killed her were real enough.’

‘Do we have an update on the bullets?’ asked Kessen.

‘Well, they’ve gone to the lab,’ said Wayne Abbott. ‘The one removed from the wall of the bedroom was too badly damaged to be any use, but the two the pathologist recovered have their surface marks intact. The firearms examiner should be able to give us the make, model and calibre of the weapon, with a bit of luck. And if we manage to locate the weapon, we can match it up to the bullets with a fair degree of certainty.’

‘Can’t we run the bullets through the ballistics database?’

‘You mean IBIS? Well, we could – but what result would you be hoping for?’

‘A match that would help us identify the weapon, of course,’ said Kessen.

Abbott shook his head. ‘I think there might be a misunderstanding of what the database can do. You can only get an identification of a firearm if it’s been found somewhere and test fired in the lab. But this weapon is still out there, being used. It won’t be recorded in the database.’

‘But if the same firearm was used in an earlier incident where the bullets were found, could we establish a link?’

‘Perhaps. Provided details from the previous incident have been entered into the database.’

‘Ask them to try, then,’ said Kessen.

‘If you say so.’

‘What about the PM report, Paul?’

‘Pretty much what we expected. One bullet entered near the victim’s left eye and ricocheted around the brain for a bit before lodging behind the right ear. The other penetrated her left lung and was removed from a site close to her spine. A high-powered rifle can do a lot of damage to a human body.’

Hitchens pinned more photographs on the board. From the location of the bullet near the spine, ripples had spread out like a stone dropped in a pond, tearing flesh and crushing soft tissue. The body was almost all water, after all – and the energy of a bullet’s impact was converted into hydrostatic force, equivalent to the devastation of a tsunami.

‘So far, we can’t put anyone else at the scene,’ said the DI. ‘In fact, we don’t even have anyone to perform an official identification until her GP returns. According to the post-mortem report, the victim was medically incapable of conceiving, so there are no children in the picture. Right now, the nearest thing to a next of kin is her part-time handyman.’

After the briefing, Fry went with Hitchens to the DCI’s office to report her progress on the Darwin Street fire enquiry.

‘When he’s well enough, I want to take the husband back to the scene,’ she said, after she’d finished bringing her senior officers up to speed. ‘Today, if possible. As soon as he’s discharged from hospital.’

‘Why?’

‘For a start, I want to see how he reacts. His response to the deaths of his wife and children has been a bit difficult to judge so far, but that could be the sedatives they’re giving him at the hospital. Also, I haven’t told him any details of how the fire started. I’d like to see if he’s drawn to the seat of the fire, or if he lets slip something that he shouldn’t know. Alternatively, if he’s innocent, he might be able to point us to some item that doesn’t belong in the house, which might indicate an intruder or a visitor that we don’t know about.’

‘So you fancy the husband for this one, Diane?’

‘Yes, sir. The neighbours say there had been problems in the marriage. Mr Mullen even moved out for a while, though it’s not known where he went. And his alibi for the time the fire started is a bit suspect – it relies entirely on his best friend, a man by the name of Jed Skinner. I think I might be able to break that alibi down without too much trouble. But I need to do it before Mr Mullen is discharged from hospital, so they can’t get together and tighten up their story.’

Kessen looked at her report. ‘If Mr Mullen is telling the truth, there must be at least one other person who can substantiate his alibi – the taxi driver who brought him home.’

‘Admittedly, we haven’t traced the driver yet. But even if we do, there was plenty of time for Mr Mullen to start the fire, get clear of the area and catch a taxi back again, arriving when the blaze had taken hold. Then he could draw conspicuous attention to his arrival by doing his tragic hero act in full view of the neighbours. Not to mention the police and firefighters, who were bound to hold him back, so he wouldn’t have to be too much of a hero.’

‘What if he’d timed it wrong, and arrived before the fire crews?’

‘It was a small gamble. Perhaps he had trust in the emergency services. Or perhaps he had more faith in his neighbour spotting the smoke.’

‘OK, it’s possible.’

‘I’ve also taken possession of the clothes Mr Mullen was wearing on the night in question. With your permission, I’d like to get them to the lab.’

‘You’re hoping to find traces of accelerant on his clothing?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What about motive?’

‘If the marriage was in trouble, I’m thinking it might have come to a head recently. For example, if Mrs Mullen had told him he had to move out, or she was filing for divorce, he might have been upset about her taking the children away. It’s happened before.’