‘Well thanks for calling. Can you tell me your name?’

‘What? Do I have to?’ she asked, the pitch of her voice rising.

For a moment Becky thought the caller might hang up, so she hurried to reassure her. ‘No, no, not if you don’t want to. But it might be easier for me if you did. I’m Becky.’

‘Will my first name do? It’s Sharon.’

‘Hello, Sharon. How can I help you?’ Becky said in her friendliest voice.

‘I was told this was the number for anyone with information about Pennington Flash.’

Becky immediately sat up straight. Several members of the team saw her reaction and the general hubbub in the room died down as eyes turned towards her.

‘That’s right. We’re investigating the discovery of a woman’s body, found there ten days ago.’

‘Oh,’ Sharon said, her voice dropping with a hint of relief. ‘It said on the news that it was longer ago than that. Sorry. I’m probably wasting your time, then.’

Becky spoke quickly: ‘The news reports were right, Sharon. We found the woman ten days ago, but we think she had been there for longer. Perhaps from when the freeze began more than two weeks ago. Whatever you were going to tell me might be more useful than you think. Shall we give it a try?’

There was a moment’s silence, as if Sharon was gathering her nerve.

‘Right.’ Sharon took an audible deep breath. ‘Well, I’ve been away, see, and only just got back – that’s why I haven’t called till now.’

From the way Sharon spoke, Becky suspected she was reading from some notes she had prepared before calling, which suggested she could be lying. Combined with the reluctance to give her name, Becky surmised that Sharon had been trying to decide whether to talk to the police or not.

‘That’s okay. It’s good of you to call now,’ Becky said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking? Don’t worry about whether it’s relevant. It’s our job to make that decision.’

‘Okay.’ There was another pause. ‘I might have seen something. I was there – at the Flash. Look, I don’t want my boyfriend to know any of this, okay? He’d call the wedding off, and that would be a disaster…’

Becky thought Sharon was about to cry, and realised that whatever she had been doing at the Flash, she was regretting it now.

‘Don’t worry. Just tell me what you saw, heard or think you know. Take your time.’

‘It was Thursday night – as I said – just over two weeks ago. I thought I’d like a bit of space – do a bit of thinking, you know? So I thought of the Flash. It’s a lovely spot, and I was sure it would be deserted at that time of night. It was well after midnight.’