It was the man who stood up to shake their hands and introduce himself. He was clearly nervous as he spoke. He kept one hand on his wife’s shoulder to reassure her and talked quickly, barely pausing to breathe, while his wife didn’t even look up from the table. ‘Hi, I’m Ray and this is Steph. It was Steph’s idea to call you, wasn’t it, dear?’

He looked down towards her but she didn’t respond. He continued speaking as he sat back down. ‘I wasn’t sure whether we should dial 999. I didn’t want to waste your time. You always see those articles about people phoning up because they’ve lost their slippers or whatever.’

Jessica took a deep breath herself, perhaps subconsciously affected by Ray’s non-stop opening. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news for you.’

She paused but Stephanie didn’t give her a chance to add any more. She looked up for the first time from the table, directly at Jessica. ‘Yvonne is dead, isn’t she?’

There wasn’t too much point in trying to tone things down. ‘Yes, she is.’

The woman let out a little sob that seemed to have been building, while her husband reached to put his arm around her, making soothing noises as he did so.

‘I’m afraid we are going to have to ask you about anything you might have seen and why you contacted us,’ Jessica added.

They had to be careful in moments such as this with balancing someone’s grief against needing to act as quickly as possible. Given the state of the body, it looked as if they had already lost a day or two. Jessica let the words hang as the woman blew her nose on a tissue offered by Rowlands and took a sip of tea.

‘We always go to this slimming club at the local school on a Wednesday,’ Stephanie said. ‘We began going together at the start of the year. Yvonne had split from her husband at the end of last year and I . . . well, I could do with losing a few pounds.’

Rowlands had his notebook out and was writing while Jessica listened as the woman continued. ‘She’d lost around eight pounds but I’d lost over a stone. I couldn’t believe it. We usually have a brew and a natter, then go to get weighed. I had texted her Tuesday morning, just some stupid joke, and she replied to say: “See you tomorrow”.’

Stephanie paused for another sip of tea. ‘But the next day she didn’t seem to be around. I’d texted her in the afternoon, just to check times, but I’d not heard back. Then I went around at five o’clock anyway, like usual, but there was no answer. Her car was on the road outside; it still is, so I didn’t think she’d gone anywhere. No one was answering the door and I could hear her phone going off inside when I called it. I tried shouting through the letterbox in case she’d hurt herself but there was no answer. I looked through the windows but couldn’t see anything and then tried the front door but it was locked.’

‘Does she live on her own?’ Jessica asked.

‘Yes. Her husband Eric moved out not long before Christmas. He’s shacked up with some other woman somewhere and James is off at university. I’ve tried to be there for her but yes, she’s on her own.’

‘Is James her son?’

‘Yes, only child. You should’ve seen her on the day he first went off to university. Crying ’cos her little baby had grown up.’

‘I don’t suppose you have any contact details for Eric, do you? We’ll need them if you do.’

Stephanie slid her chair backwards with a screech, stretching towards a handbag on one of the counters. She reached in and took out a mobile phone. ‘I have a mobile number for him. I don’t know where he lives though. I texted him on Thursday before I called you, just to see if he’d seen her.’

‘Had he?’

‘I only got a one-word reply.’

Stephanie held up the phone for the officers to see the simple answer: ‘No’.

‘I was surprised I got that to be honest,’ Stephanie added. ‘That’s when I called you. I didn’t really know what else to do. It wasn’t like her to say nothing if she was going away and . . . I just felt something was wrong. You do, don’t you?’

Jessica nodded while Rowlands took down the number for Eric Christensen then handed the page to her.

Stephanie tailed off tearfully . ‘I guess I’m just glad it wasn’t me that found her . . .’

Jessica started to say something hopefully reassuring but stopped herself and thought for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that?’

The woman breathed in and her sobs slowed for a moment. She took a second to compose herself and then made eye contact with Jessica. ‘It’s just that, if Yvonne’s front door hadn’t have been locked, it might have been me that found her the other day.’

Jessica narrowed her eyes slightly and leant back into her chair, feeling a slight tingle down her spine. ‘So, you don’t have a key then?’ she asked to make sure.

‘No. She would leave me one to watch the house if she was on holiday but that was it.’

Jessica offered her thanks and sympathy and told Rowlands to hang around to make sure Mr and Mrs Wilson were okay. She walked as quickly as she could back down the street to the victim’s house, weaving in between the parked squad cars and ducked under the police tape, striding towards the busted front door.

The Scene of Crime team had arrived. Usually it was only one person who attended but, on this occasion, word had obviously gone out that it wouldn’t be so straightforward. Someone Jessica didn’t recognise was wearing a white paper suit just inside the hallway, while a second person was disappearing up the stairs. The one in the hall started to say something but Jessica ignored him, nudging past and pushing on towards the door at the back of the hall that led into the rest of the house.

Cole came out of the kitchen just as she reached the already open hallway door. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked but she didn’t react.

She looked at the wall to the right of the doorway, wanting to make sure she had been right about what she thought she had seen when she was going up the stairs earlier. At the time it hadn’t registered fully but she could now see what was in front of her: a row of hooks with keys hanging from them. On the right one was a set of car keys attached to a fob but it was what was hanging next to it she was interested in.

Cole looked at her bemused as Jessica went to the paper-suited person still by the doorway and asked for a rubber glove. She returned to the rack and carefully took the key ring hanging on the left hook. It had two keys on it. ‘What are you . . .?’ Cole started to say before tailing off.

Jessica took the key to the front door, still just about hanging on to the frame after being smashed through by the police. It was a big, heavy double-glazed door, the type that needed the handle pulling up so it would lock. She crouched down and wiggled the key into the lock, turning it just to make sure it was the right one.

She then quickly hopped up, striding back past the paper-suited officer and Cole into the kitchen. She walked purposefully past the immaculately clean stove and worktops to the back door before trying the handle. It was locked but the second key on the key ring fitted and turned. Cole was now behind her next to the door and spoke more forcefully this time. ‘What are you doing?’

Jessica paused for a moment before replying. ‘Well, Sir, if the front door had to be broken down because it was locked but the key was hanging in the hallway the whole time, then how did the killer get in – or back out?’

3

It hadn’t taken long to establish that every window in the house was also secured from the inside. There was no sign of forced entry, none of the locks had been damaged, nothing was broken and no obvious items had been stolen. There was still a flatscreen television on the wall and a laptop computer on a desk in the living room. Jessica knew that didn’t mean other things hadn’t been taken but, with a standard burglary, something like a laptop – light, mobile and worth a few quid – would have been one of the first things out the door. Yvonne Christensen’s mobile phone, which had been heard ringing, was on the nightstand next to the bed as well. It wasn’t a top-of-the-range model but she knew some scroat somewhere would have paid a tenner for it.