‘It’s another unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile.’

‘This woman is unnatural.’

‘Well, let’s not get downhearted. I’ve saved the good news for last. We do have a couple of possibilities, which will be prioritized today. Number one, there’s the victim’s GP. He’s away at the moment, but at least he should be able to confirm an ID when he gets back, and he might have some information for us, if he ever talked to Miss Shepherd properly. Number two, there’s the estate agent who handled the house sale. We found the name of the firm in the victim’s phone book – Windsor and Ellis. They’re checking their records to see who dealt with Miss Shepherd, and whether that person still works there. Presumably there would have been a solicitor involved, too, when she bought Bain House, though there’s no sign of any lawyers in the address book.’

‘The estate agents ought to be able to give us that, too.’

‘Right. And house-to-house is complete, but as usual we should treat the results with caution.’

‘We’ve done the whole village?’

‘Yes, all of it. And we’re still getting calls from the public in response to the media appeals. Almost everything we’ve got so far has been third hand and uncorroborated, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I’ve asked the incident-room staff to collate the information and hopefully eliminate anything that’s been made up on the spot by some eager citizen trying to be too helpful.’

‘What are we left with?’

‘Well, the consensus in Foxlow is that Rose Shepherd was a retired headmistress who had been working in Scotland but came down here to live after she inherited money from an elderly relative. Some say her father, others an uncle.’

‘That would explain the purchase of Bain House, but not her secretiveness.’

‘There’s more: the word in the village is that she kept her valuables in the house, in some kind of secret stash, and that she was terrified the house might be burgled. There have been a number of break-ins in this area.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘The last tidbit is that Rose Shepherd is said to have a boyfriend back in Scotland. She called him Douglas or Dougie, and he lives near Glasgow.’

‘Has Dougie ever been seen in Foxlow?’ asked Kessen.

‘Not so far as we know.’

‘Damn it. This means we’re going to have to ask for assistance from Strathclyde Police. If they can track down a Rose Shepherd who was a headmistress in their area, it might lead us to Dougie. I’ll ask them to get Taggart on the job.’

‘There’s more. The really good news is that we’ve found someone locally who had direct contact with Miss Shepherd.’

‘Hallelujah.’