He coughed again and turned the brim of his helmet in his fingers. ‘I’ve been speaking to the lady next door. She says it’s only just occurred to her to mention it . . . Well, it seems there were three children living at this address. Mrs Mullen had a daughter, as well as the two boys.’

Fry stared at the charred wreckage and thought about the bedrooms. There was a closed door at the end of the landing, a third room she hadn’t entered. But the firefighters must have been through the whole house, surely? They wouldn’t have left a bedroom unchecked for victims, would they?

‘The daughter could be away from home,’ she said. ‘Staying over with friends for the night or something. What age is she?’

The officer swallowed. ‘According to the neighbour, the third child is about eighteen months old.’

Fry bit her lip. She hated incidents that involved children. Someone else ought to have taken this job. She ought to have sent one of her DCs. Not Gavin Murfin, though – well, not on his own. But Ben Cooper would have been a good choice. Cooper understood children. He knew all about families. Fry thought he’d probably read far more into the circumstances of this house than she could herself. But Cooper hadn’t been on early call this morning. You couldn’t always get the right officer for a job.

Her eyes were drawn past the PC and back to the two bin liners standing near the front door. It was only then that she realized the bags weren’t bulging because of the amount of clothes stuffed inside them, but because the plastic had melted and sagged into obscene lumps and swellings. One of the bags had split completely when Gavin pushed the door against it, and the skirt of a blue Baby Gap denim dress protruded from the rip.

‘Where’s the husband now?’ she asked.

‘Edendale General,’ said the PC. ‘He suffered minor burns and smoke inhalation trying to get into the house.’

‘Did you say “trying to get in”?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t at home when the fire started. I thought they would have told you.’

‘There seem to be a lot of things that no one’s telling me,’ said Fry. ‘Has everyone around here taken a vow of silence, or what?’

Postman Bernie Wilding was already late with his deliveries in Foxlow that morning, when he remembered the package for Rose Shepherd. That was unusual in itself – Miss Shepherd rarely got more than bank statements and junk mail. Most days, there was nothing in his van for her at all.