The two officers had shown their identification cards and Jessica had put on her best ‘Pull your finger out, I’m a police officer don’t you know?’ face. It hadn’t really got them anywhere.

Eventually the receptionist picked up the phone and a nurse had come to escort them. Sandra Prince had her own room on a third-floor ward which had a uniformed officer assigned to it. The nurse told them that Mrs Prince’s doctor wanted to speak to them before he would allow them to talk to his patient, so they were left in a small cupboard posing as an office along the hallway from the ward.

Jessica really didn’t like hospitals. She’d not had any particular traumatic experience with them as some might have done but she had been on a few call-outs while in uniform. She had once come to see a victim of a domestic violence in this exact hospital. A young girl had had her face smashed in by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Jessica had to take the photos for evidence purposes and every time she came here, she remembered the girl’s battered, bruised and swollen face. In the end, the girl had refused to testify in court.

Another time an assault had happened in the hospital itself. Somebody who had fallen down on a night out and was still drunk had tried to start trouble while in the waiting room. Jessica had taken special pleasure in arresting him. Those incidents and more meant she was rarely keen on coming to this place.

Ideally she wouldn’t have had to for this case. Usually interviews would be done at the police station so anything that was said would be recorded. But Sandra Prince was not really a suspect and, given her doctor’s advice, it had been felt the interview could be done here. Her presence at work had already been confirmed for the whole of the day the murder had taken place. She could have killed her husband in the morning and then left the house but it did seem unlikely given the similarities to the first case. They had to check with Aylesbury but he had told them they could speak to her out of the station.

When the woman’s doctor arrived, he told them Mrs Prince had gone into shock after finding out about her husband but had been fully coherent since yesterday evening. He said she had not seen the day’s paper or any of the news coverage and asked if there were any more shocks they were going to spring upon her. He also wanted to know if she was under suspicion. If she was, he told them they would have to move her to the station. Technically they didn’t have to tell him anyway but they reassured him and he showed them into the Sandra Prince’s private room.

The room wasn’t massive but certainly bigger than most people’s bedrooms. It was spotlessly clean with a few pieces of medical equipment surrounding two single beds facing the door. One of the beds was empty, while a woman was sitting up in the other. Jonathan Prince was in a chair next to his mother’s bed. She had greying curly hair that was cut fairly short. She wore glasses but her skin was almost as pale as the white bed sheets, the tone in stark contrast to the wrinkles in her face. Aside from her colour, there wasn’t anything else noticeably wrong. Not that there should have been but she seemed relatively perky when the doctor asked how she was and checked her blood pressure. He then said he would leave them alone but told his patient she could ring the emergency alarm next to her bed at any time.

Jessica arranged two more seats next to the bed for herself and Cole, while he introduced himself and Jessica and explained that, although they were not in the station, he still had to caution her for legal reasons. He told Sandra Prince that she was entitled to have a legal advisor present and that there would be a free one available at the station if that was what she wanted.

Mrs Prince pulled herself up into more of a seated position. She looked at Jonathan, then back at them and said: ‘It’s okay. I just want to find out who did this.’

Jessica said they were going to have to ask her son to leave the room. Jonathan seemed a little reluctant to go away from his mother but she told him it was fine. He closed the door behind him and Jessica started the interview. ‘Could you tell us what happened on the day your husband was killed please, Mrs Prince?’

The woman cleared her throat. ‘I always get up for Jonathan. He has to go to work early and, even though he’s grown up now, I always think it’s nice for him to see someone in the morning. He left and then I had some toast, watched a bit of TV and went to work myself.’

‘Did you see your husband that morning at all?’

‘Not really. I gave him a kiss goodbye on my way out. I always do that. He was still in bed and half-asleep. He said goodbye back.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘Always eight twenty-five exactly.’

‘Did you have any contact at all with your husband that day? Call him? Text him?’

Sandra Prince took off her glasses and gave a small laugh. ‘Martin couldn’t text. He had a mobile but he didn’t really know how to use it. He could manage calls but not texts. I didn’t call him, no.’

There were tears in her eyes as she spoke. Jessica gave her a few moments until she seemed fully composed. ‘Do you remember if you locked the door when you left that morning?’

‘I always locked it if Martin wasn’t up. If he was out of bed I wouldn’t bother but I think sometimes he would sleep a lot during the day. I would always make a point of locking the door when he was still upstairs.’

Jessica looked at Cole, who gave her a half-nod. ‘Okay, Mrs Prince,’ Jessica said. ‘This might sound like a stupid question but do you know of any other way into your house other than by the doors or windows?’

‘How do you mean?’ She paused and added: ‘We have a cat-flap at the back but it is always locked shut. We used to have a cat but she was run over years ago and we didn’t want to replace her. Since then, we’ve kept it locked.’

‘Nothing other than that?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know of anyone who might want to cause your husband or your family any harm?’

Sandra Prince smiled a little. ‘No. Martin didn’t really have that much contact with other people. Since he lost his job, he stayed in a lot and I can’t think of anyone else. We just kept ourselves to ourselves.’

‘Has your husband’s behaviour been any different recently?’

Mrs Prince shook her head. ‘He didn’t go out too often after he was made redundant. Since the burglary, he went out even less. He didn’t want to leave the house empty.’

Cole and Jessica looked at each other. Jessica’s eyes were wide and she could feel her heart rate rising. ‘Since the what?’

‘The burglary. We were burgled around this time last year. Someone broke in while we were at a friend’s house. They didn’t take much but it was just the thought of someone going through your things. Martin wanted to move but we didn’t have the money. He hated leaving the place empty after that.’

Jessica felt her stomach lurch as her heart continued to pound. She found it hard to stay in her seat. ‘Did the police find who did it?’

‘We thought so but the guy was let out.’

Jessica stood up and thanked Sandra Prince for her time, barely knowing what she was saying as the adrenaline powered through her. She left the room with Cole, thanking Jonathan, who was sitting outside next to the uniformed officer, for his patience.

They didn’t say a word until they were outside of the main hospital building. ‘How did we miss this?’ Cole said to no one in particular. Jessica was already ahead of him. She had taken out her mobile phone and dialled Rowlands. He answered with a standard put-down but she cut across him.

‘Are you near a computer?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Do you have the Christensens’ address near you?’

‘Somewhere . . .’

Jessica and Cole were walking towards the car park as she heard Rowlands scrabbling around on the other end. ‘Hurry up,’ she muttered, not knowing if he still had the phone at his ear.