Before Ridley could answer, the dog handler popped up from the other side of a hedge.

“Sir!”

Amber was sitting to attention, pointing her nose to the ground, tail wagging. Her handler moved the low branches of the hedge to one side and revealed a short piece of garden hose, which was the same color and design as the garden hose in the back garden of Rose Cottage. In the soil was an intact toe print from what looked like a trainer.

“Amber’s indicating that this hose smells of petrol.”

“Could Amber have missed a petrol accelerant inside the cottage?” Prescott asked.

“At this scene . . . yes, sir,” Amber’s handler explained. “The fire had already been burning for a long time when we arrived, so all traces of accelerant could have burned away. And the smell of the body could have overpowered the scent, too.”

Prescott waved to a SOCO carrying a digital SLR camera as he reassured Ridley.

“We’ve bagged samples of every piece of debris from inside, so if petrol was used, forensics will tell us. And we’ll get a cast of that toe print.”

As the SOCO took pictures of the cut hose in situ, before bagging it as evidence, Anik was mesmerized by Amber bounding around the neighboring field with her tongue flapping about from beneath the tennis ball.

Ridley replied to Prescott’s earlier question. “I’m more than happy for your men to continue at this end, DI Prescott. Thank you.”

With that, Prescott led the way back round to the front of the cottage. Jack paused, made notes on his mobile and pondered “intent” as he looked at the clearly improvized piece of cut hose. Whatever had happened here, the fire might not have been planned. Something could have just gone very wrong, very quickly.

In the front garden, everyone stood amid the muddy mess of trampled roses and fire-damaged furniture as Prescott continued with his heads-up.

“After Norma died, a supermarket approached the owner of the cottage within weeks and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. There’s a newish housing estate about a quarter-mile away, built on the land where The Grange used to be, so a supermarket here’ll make a killing. Demolition’s paused now, of course. This place’ll stay exactly as-is till you say otherwise. And the postmortem’s paused an’ all. I’ll get Abbi’s preliminary findings to you, along with all the evidence and statements we’ve collected so far. Collecting the cash has been a bloody nightmare. Most of it crumbles on contact, but we’re getting video and photographic records of every step we’re taking. ’Ave I missed anything, sir?”

“Do the witness statements for the fire give us anything?” Ridley asked.

“Nah. No direct witnesses. No CCTV. We’ve got dozens of housing estate residents giving you an accurate timeline for when the fire started, though.”

“Thank you, DI Prescott.”

Ridley looked at the carnage that surrounded him. He dreaded to think what the inside looked like.

Anik frowned over the top of his blue paper face mask as he watched everyone else milling around the now-empty lounge of Rose Cottage. They all wore their blue paper suits well, whereas his was far too big and made him look inflatable.