Cooper showed him a copy of Rose Shepherd’s passport photograph. Neat grey hair and sharp blue eyes. Not the woman he remembered seeing on the floor of her bedroom.

‘Was this the person you dealt with, sir?’

‘Yes, I believe so. As far as I can recall.’

‘Do you know if Miss Shepherd had Bain House redecorated when she moved in?’

Yates looked surprised. ‘I couldn’t tell you. Why?’

‘I was in the house on Tuesday. I saw the sitting room. Off-white and charcoal grey – it seemed out of character, from what little we know of Miss Shepherd. I wouldn’t have thought she cared that much about the place to make design statements.’

‘Oh, that was the previous owners,’ said Yates. ‘They had big plans for the property, but I don’t think they got any further than the sitting room and the bathroom. They ran out of money.’

‘What a shame.’

Yates shrugged. ‘It happens.’

‘So the electric gates and security systems …?’

‘Ah, there was nothing like that. Miss Shepherd must have had it done. Very sensible, too. I would have recommended it, if she’d consulted me.’

They left through the displays of property: prestige homes in one window, compact semis in the other. ‘Image,’ said Hitchens when they were outside. ‘It’s very important to some people, Ben.’

‘Sir?’ said Cooper.

‘Did you notice the photograph of the family on Mr Yates’ desk?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Good, because you were meant to.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he had the photograph facing towards us. We could see it, but he couldn’t. Doesn’t that tell you anything?’

Cooper thought about it. ‘If his family were really so important to him, the photo would have been facing the other way, so he could look at it. But it was aimed at his visitors – part of the office décor, designed to impress.’

‘Exactly. Mr Yates was sending out a message. He was saying “Look at me, I’m the perfect family man. You can trust me. Give me your business.” It only needs a few simple things to create a false image.’

Fry stood over the hospital bed and smiled. ‘Mr Mullen, I understand you’re about to be discharged. That’s good news.’

‘Yes, I’m not feeling too bad now. I can’t stay in this bed any longer – there are things to sort out. Henry and Moira have been brilliant, but there’s Luanne. She needs her dad.’

‘I understand. Are you going to stay with Mr and Mrs Lowther in Darley Dale?’

‘Yes, until I can get something else arranged.’

‘Well, Mr Mullen, we’ll need you to come back to Darwin Street as soon as you feel well enough.’

‘I’m not going to start sorting the place out yet. I can’t face that.’

‘No, of course not. But we’d like you to take us over the ground – you’re the only person who was familiar with the contents of your house.’

‘Contents? Like what?’

‘We’ll go into all that when we’re on site. We also have some photos for you to look at.’

Mullen looked anxious. ‘Not –?’

‘No.’ Fry shook her head. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t explain that very well. I meant photographs of items that we recovered near the seat of the fire. It’s important for us to establish if there was anything in the sitting room that shouldn’t have been there.’

‘All right. I see what you’re getting at.’

‘When do you think you could do that?’

Mullen looked at his bandaged hands. ‘As long as you don’t expect me to sign anything, I reckon I could do it now. Best to get it over with, eh?’

Fry felt like smiling at him for the first time. ‘Thank you, sir. I’ll have a word with your doctor. If I can get his agreement, we’ll do it today. OK?’

Eric Grice laid down his electric drill and blew stone dust off the wall. As he wiped a film of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he left a small streak of dust on his temple.

‘And I suppose you’re flummoxed,’ he said.

‘Flummoxed? That’s an interesting word, Mr Grice. People usually say the police are baffled.’

‘Aye. But flummoxed is worse.’

Hitchens didn’t smile. People like Eric Grice rarely amused him. ‘We’ve been asking around the village since Tuesday for someone who had any contact with Miss Shepherd. It would have helped us if you’d come forward earlier.’

‘I don’t live in the village,’ said Grice. ‘My sister does, but she’s on her holidays this week. She’s in Jersey. Late autumn break.’

‘Where do you live yourself, sir?’

‘Matlock.’

‘It’s not a million miles away.’

‘In some ways it is.’

Cooper could smell the singed stone from the hole Grice had been drilling into the wall. It looked as though he was planning on erecting some trellis.

‘You know, it seems odd that so few people knew anything about Rose Shepherd when she was part of the village for the past year,’ he said.

‘Ah, well, she only seems to have been part of the village. As a matter of fact, Miss Shepherd might as well have been living in a separate universe from the rest of us. A different time and place altogether. That’s the impression she gave whenever I saw her, anyway.’

‘Did you see her often? She’s supposed to have been a bit of a recluse.’

‘A what?’

‘Everyone else says she didn’t go out of the house much.’

‘Oh yes, she was a right old hermit, if that’s what you mean. But there were some things she couldn’t do without.’ He shook his head. ‘You can’t live in this day and age and have no contact with another human being. It just doesn’t work.’

‘So where did you meet her?’

‘At her house, of course.’

‘Really?’

‘She sent for me to come round now and then. Whenever she needed some odd jobs doing. Not often, though. She tended to save them up – enough jobs for me to do in one visit, like. A dripping tap, a blown fuse, a few tiles off the roof. It seemed as though she could put up with a leak or the lights out for a while, and it didn’t bother her. She preferred it to having someone in her house, I reckon.’

‘You had the impression she didn’t like you being there?’

Grice fingered a set of yellow Rawlplugs, assessing the size of the hole he’d made in the wall. Then he snapped one off and held it for a moment between finger and thumb.

‘I was only ever there on tolerance – a necessary evil, you might say. It was like she had to grit her teeth before she even opened the door to let me in. Yes, a very private person, was Miss Shepherd. What name did you call that?’

‘A recluse.’

He nodded, as if filing away the word for future use. ‘A recluse. Aye.’

‘How many times did you go there?’

‘I don’t know. Five or six, I suppose. The last time was three weeks ago, to clear the guttering and sweep up dead leaves.’

‘Mr Grice, did Rose Shepherd ever talk to you while you were at her house? Did she tell you anything about herself?’

‘No, not her.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘Any little detail that she might have let slip could be useful to us. Why don’t you give it some thought –’

‘I don’t need to give it any thought,’ said Grice. ‘She never talked to me. She pointed out the jobs that wanted doing, then left me to it. She hid herself away somewhere, went up to her bedroom or something. I thought it was a bit odd at first. The second time I went up to see her, I tried to make conversation. Only to ask whether she wanted me to fix the loose corner of a carpet while I was there. But she didn’t want to discuss anything. In fact, she got a bit cross. She told me she’d get somebody else in, if I wanted to ask questions instead of doing the job. I reckon she meant it, too. After that, I didn’t even dare ask for a cup of tea.’

‘I assume she paid well.’

‘Aye, that was it. You do what the customer wants, especially if they’re paying over the odds.’

Hitchens was studying him carefully. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t see anything in all the time you were in Bain House, Mr Grice. From what you’ve just said, you were practically unsupervised. You must have been curious. Well, weren’t you?’