The three houses were all roughly the same size and the same build too – a mix of stone and render, with slate roofs and double garages, and then a U-shaped garden that wrapped around the front and sides of each. They were separated from each other by wooden fences, wild flowers and vines weaving their way through the slats, so that each property maintained a degree of privacy. But the privacy was more of an illusion than anything: the buildings were beautifully constructed – big, four-bedroomed homes – but they were close enough to one another that it would have been almost impossible to live here if you didn’t get on with your neighbours.

The farmhouse fanned out behind one of the houses, a bungalow all on one level. It too was built from stone but it had a thatched roof and was a little less pristine, hay bales randomly, untidily scattered, tractor tyres piled up. There was an overturned animal trough close to the front door and two ruptured water butts. But nothing could quite impair the view: in whatever direction you looked, hills rolled into the distance and the dark spring sky seemed to go on for ever.

‘Which one was your mum and dad’s?’ I asked Ross.

‘That one,’ he said, gesturing to the house closest to us. I’d seen pictures of the house already in the research I’d done, in the police file I’d managed to get hold of as well, but as they all looked the same, I wanted to be sure. ‘They moved in three and a half years ago,’ he added.

‘They were obviously looking for somewhere quiet.’

Ross smiled, but it was sad and seemed hard to form.

‘They loved this part of the world,’ he said softly, his eyes scanning the hills. The nearest village was a mile to the east. In between it was just fields and stone walls. Other houses were dotted further out, like smudges against the morning and, way off into the distance – little more than a few strokes of a brush – was the ashen hint of a town. Chimneys. Roofs. Telegraph poles.

‘Before this,’ I said, ‘they lived near Manchester – is that right?’

‘About twenty miles away, in a village called Denshaw.’

‘They seemed happy there?’

‘They were in the same house for twenty-one years. The house I grew up in.’ He glanced at me. ‘They always seemed happy wherever they were.’

His mouth flattened – an attempt to appear stoic – and then his eyes instantly betrayed him as he looked at their home again. He started to blink a little faster, obviously not wanting to stand here, in front of me, in tears. I saved him any embarrassment by moving past him, closer to the house. At the side I could see a grey Mercedes, parked outside a garage, and then a glimpse of the back garden.

‘How come the car’s still here?’ I asked Ross.