‘By the way, the Ridgeways think Rose Shepherd was a foreigner,’ said Fry.

‘That’s funny. The Birtlands think the Ridgeways are foreigners.’

Fry snorted. ‘They’re from Luton.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Oh, I see. So the Ridgeways are the awful incomers. What happened to that famous –’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Also, Mr Ridgeway kept banging on about grey squirrels. He seems to have a bit of an obsession with them.’

‘They’re a big problem,’ said Cooper. ‘The government ought to do something to eradicate them.’

Fry just groaned. And Cooper wondered what he’d said wrong this time.

8

Moira Lowther gave her son another hug. ‘Take care, John. Give us a call if you need to talk. You know we’re here, don’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s all right.’

She looked suddenly anxious and tried to hold him back. ‘And you’re taking – You’re doing everything you should, dear?’

‘It’s fine. Everything’s under control.’

He walked back down the path, no longer seeming to care whether he stepped on the tortoises, or whether the angel was close enough to speak to. His green Hyundai stood at the kerb, just out of sight below the wall.

Moira watched him until he vanished from view, and listened for his car driving away. Then she turned back to her husband. ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘Just Tony.’

‘Who?’

‘You know, he used to work for the company. He went off a few months ago to set up on his own account.’

‘Oh, yes, I remember. He was the one I didn’t like.’

Lowther laughed. ‘You and your likes and dislikes. Tony was always loyal to the company. Unlike some of these others, deserting a sinking ship.’

‘Is it that bad, Henry?’

‘Oh, we’ll survive.’

‘I don’t want to have to think about it right now.’

‘None of us do.’

She gazed down the road, though the Hyundai was long since gone.

‘Do you think John will be all right?’ she said.

‘We’d better keep an eye on him. He’s very upset.’ Lowther put an arm round his wife. ‘And how are you coping?’

The question seemed to start her tears all over again, and tears turned to deep, racking sobs. It was a few moments before she could get her breath back.

‘How did it happen?’ she said. ‘How on earth did it happen?’

‘Hell, I don’t know.’

Mrs Lowther pulled out a tissue to dry her eyes. They both stood in their garden in silence for a while, listening to the trickle of water, the chatter of a blackbird. No one watching them could have told what they were thinking, or whether the Lowthers were even thinking the same thoughts.

‘Well, we have to make sure we look after the living now, don’t we?’ said Moira. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

Henry Lowther patted her shoulder. ‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted,’ he said.

‘Between two and four a. m.?’ said Hitchens when Cooper and Fry returned to Bain House. ‘Is that the best they could do?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, it falls bang in the middle of our time scale, anyway. So it helps a bit, I suppose.’

‘We’re no closer to filling in details of Miss Shepherd’s background, though,’ said Fry.

Hitchens shook his head. ‘Not much nearer. Although the owners of the village shop think Rose Shepherd’s accent might have been Irish.’

‘Do they? But her passport says she was British. Born in London.’ Fry laughed. ‘It’s possible, though. Irish is foreign enough for folk round here.’

‘Why don’t we put it to Bernie Wilding?’ suggested Cooper.

But Hitchens shook his head. ‘It would be leading him too much. At the moment, he can’t identify Miss Shepherd’s accent, but if we suggest a particular nationality, he might try to make all his recollections fit in with the suggestion. I bet we could get him to agree that Rose Shepherd was an Iraqi or an Australian – anything we like the sound of.’

‘The name Shepherd sounds more Australian than Iraqi,’ pointed out Cooper.

‘I meant those as examples,’ said Hitchens. ‘Wake up, Ben.’

‘I was joking.’

‘Right. Well, it hasn’t been a laugh a minute round here, I can tell you – not with Mr Kessen in the mood he’s in. We have found a laptop, though. It was in the bottom drawer of the victim’s wardrobe.’

‘Well, that’s good news,’ said Fry. ‘Has it been checked out yet?’

‘We haven’t had time to go through the files, but Miss Shepherd definitely had internet access. It looks as though she used an ordinary modem dial-up connection, so she could have used the laptop right there in the bedroom, plugged into the socket for the bedside phone.’

‘Any interesting email correspondence?’

‘Nothing obvious, apart from some junk mail. God knows why she kept that. But it looks as though she might have joined some online groups, because there were different aliases and screen names. It seems Rose Shepherd did have a social life, of a kind. But it was all online.’

‘By the way, I’ve got the package that the postman was trying to deliver,’ said Cooper. ‘It isn’t all that big, but it’s heavy for its size.’

‘Open it up. But be careful.’

When the cardboard packaging came off, they were looking at three books from an internet bookseller. Maeve Binchy, Danielle Steele, Josephine Cox.

‘Does that give us any clues?’ asked Hitchens.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Cooper. ‘I once saw a Muslim woman in full chador buying a Danielle Steele novel in a supermarket, so I don’t think we can make any assumptions.’

‘The only surprise to me is that she ordered three books at once, since it meant they wouldn’t go into her letter box,’ said Fry.

‘Maybe they were on special offer,’ said the DI, moving away to answer his phone.

Fry waited for a quiet moment, then approached him between calls.

‘Sir, I’m going to need to review the house fire enquiry. You know, the triple death?’

‘Not now, Diane.’

‘But –’

‘Well, not unless you have firm evidence of malicious intent. Do you?’

‘No, sir. Not yet.’

‘Come back to me when you do, then.’

Fry bit her lip. She obviously wasn’t going to get a look-in on the Rose Shepherd enquiry. She was too junior in this company. But she had an enquiry of her own that she could make a mark with – if she could find the time to work it properly. The Darwin Street fire was low priority until malicious intent was proved. But there were ways around that problem.

She went outside and found Gavin Murfin. Ben Cooper would have been more useful, but his absence was likely to be noticed, so Murfin would have to do.

‘Ah, Gavin, you’re not doing very much,’ she said, taking hold of his arm and steering him towards her car.

‘Well, actually –’

‘Good. You’re with me.’

Somehow, Murfin had obtained a pork pie, which he was eating out of a paper bag. He’d got into the habit of bringing food with him if he thought he was going to be away from civilization for a few hours.

‘But if you drop bits of that pie in my car, Gavin, you know what’ll happen. And it won’t be pretty.’

Fry had to negotiate the lines of vehicles in Pinfold Lane to find somewhere to turn round. The only space was the entrance to the Birtlands’ driveway.

As she reversed to do her three-point turn, she saw Ben Cooper standing in the gateway of Bain House. He’d stopped to speak to one of the SOCOs, Liz Petty. It wasn’t clear whether she was working the scene, because she was still wearing her navy blue sweater with the Derbyshire Constabulary logo rather than a protective scene suit. Fry watched them for a moment as she changed gear. She saw Petty push back her dark hair and confine it in a clip behind her head. Her cheeks looked slightly pink as she laughed at something Cooper was saying.

‘They make a grand couple, don’t they?’ said Murfin, picking crumbs off the seat. ‘Ben and Liz, I mean,’ he added, as if it needed explaining.