All she did know was that Andrew started on this dark path when he was about eleven years old. The boy changed from being a happy-go-lucky lad to a withdrawn, sulky little brat. Francesca had always put it down to hormones, but given recent events began to wonder if there had been more to it than that.

She searched her memory to see if she could pinpoint an event that might have caused the change in Andrew, but nothing stood out and she found herself feeling even more frustrated and helpless. Neither were emotions she relished, or dealt with well, and as she turned the corner and saw the church, she decided the only thing left to do was to pray.

DI Palmer was not a man known for losing his temper but, after the team had trawled through Wendy Matlock’s past without finding any link between her and Dennis Wade, he had shouted, sworn and walked out of the incident room. He had left some shell-shocked colleagues in his wake.

What they had discovered was that Wendy was married but separated from her husband. Wendy had married Shane Matlock in 2010 and the couple had parted ways in mid-2017. Shane Matlock had moved out of the marital home, in which Wendy had remained living in, up until her murder. After looking into her finances, the team had also discovered that Shane still contributed to the mortgage payments, despite the fact the couple had no children and had never legally divorced.

Once they knew Wendy had been married, Singh had been tasked with tracking down the victim’s husband. The man was now living in Royston, a town in north Hertfordshire, about fifteen kilometres south west from Cambridge. It seemed Shane ran a construction company and was now living with a woman called Gemma Nash in a rented house on the Gower Road, a quiet street on the north side of the town.

When Barrett heard about this, he had called Palmer and ordered him to take Singh and go to Royston to break the news to Shane. Frustrated by the lack of progress at the station, Palmer was pleased to be given an opportunity to get out.

The DI and the sergeant drove in silence to Royston. Palmer was still in a foul mood and Singh decided that remaining tight lipped was his best bet.

As the distance between the car and Cambridge grew the snow on the fields appeared cleaner again. The slush, like Palmer’s irritation, was gradually disappearing.

Pulling onto Gower Road, Singh kept his eye out for Hawthorne cottage and soon saw it on the left and pointed it out to Palmer, who pulled the car up onto the pavement.