Cooper went upstairs to look at the bedrooms. The rooms smelled musty, and it was obvious Owen didn’t do much cleaning, or even open the windows very often. One room contained a double bed. Cooper remembered that Owen had looked after his mother until she died, aged ninety. Her room was still as it must have been just after her death – the sympathy cards still on the window ledge, the tea tray next to the bed, even the bed itself unmade, as if the old lady had only just got up. The smells of this room were familiar to Cooper. They were redolent of the worst periods of his own mother’s illness, the schizophrenia that had thrown the Coopers’ lives into chaos in the past two years.

He drew the curtain back a few inches, loosening a shower of dust. He was startled by a small explosion and a burst of coloured light above the neighbouring houses. Then he remembered it was the weekend for official village bonfires. He had passed the site of the Cargreave bonfire on his way into the village. The mere sight of the enormous heap of branches and old doors had brought back to him all the familiar smells of the Guy Fawkes nights of his youth – the black stink of the gunpowder and scorched fireworks cases, the stab of woodsmoke on the back of the throat, the scent of trampled grass, the hotdog stands and baked potato stalls. His mouth had begun to water at imaginary wafts of fried onions and melted cheese mingling with the sharpness of a November frost.

Presumably there would be plenty more fireworks later on. But there would be no stuffed Guy Fawkes on the bonfire this year. No one considered it acceptable to burn Catholics in effigy these days, not even in Derbyshire.

Cooper looked in the smaller bedroom, but found it was jammed full with old furniture and boxes of books. The frame of a single bed was hidden under there somewhere, but there was no way of getting to it. He looked along the landing. There was only a bathroom and a small airing cupboard left.

He went back to the first bedroom again. It was dark and stuffy, like a sick room. Cooper wanted to yank back the curtains and let the light in, but he imagined the whole thing would wither and crumble to dust when the sunlight touched it. He had just realized why the bed was unmade. Owen had been sleeping in it himself.

Though the detective was still downstairs and a constable was on the door, the forensic team had already moved on from the cottage in Cargreave. They had left to search the Ranger centre at Partridge Cross, where Owen Fox spent so much of his time. Later, they would carry away papers from his desk, along with a spare pair of boots, a rucksack, and a waste-paper bin.