Hitchens didn’t smile. People like Eric Grice rarely amused him. ‘We’ve been asking around the village since Tuesday for someone who had any contact with Miss Shepherd. It would have helped us if you’d come forward earlier.’

‘I don’t live in the village,’ said Grice. ‘My sister does, but she’s on her holidays this week. She’s in Jersey. Late autumn break.’

‘Where do you live yourself, sir?’

‘Matlock.’

‘It’s not a million miles away.’

‘In some ways it is.’

Cooper could smell the singed stone from the hole Grice had been drilling into the wall. It looked as though he was planning on erecting some trellis.

‘You know, it seems odd that so few people knew anything about Rose Shepherd when she was part of the village for the past year,’ he said.

‘Ah, well, she only seems to have been part of the village. As a matter of fact, Miss Shepherd might as well have been living in a separate universe from the rest of us. A different time and place altogether. That’s the impression she gave whenever I saw her, anyway.’

‘Did you see her often? She’s supposed to have been a bit of a recluse.’

‘A what?’

‘Everyone else says she didn’t go out of the house much.’

‘Oh yes, she was a right old hermit, if that’s what you mean. But there were some things she couldn’t do without.’ He shook his head. ‘You can’t live in this day and age and have no contact with another human being. It just doesn’t work.’

‘So where did you meet her?’

‘At her house, of course.’

‘Really?’

‘She sent for me to come round now and then. Whenever she needed some odd jobs doing. Not often, though. She tended to save them up – enough jobs for me to do in one visit, like. A dripping tap, a blown fuse, a few tiles off the roof. It seemed as though she could put up with a leak or the lights out for a while, and it didn’t bother her. She preferred it to having someone in her house, I reckon.’

‘You had the impression she didn’t like you being there?’

Grice fingered a set of yellow Rawlplugs, assessing the size of the hole he’d made in the wall. Then he snapped one off and held it for a moment between finger and thumb.

‘I was only ever there on tolerance – a necessary evil, you might say. It was like she had to grit her teeth before she even opened the door to let me in. Yes, a very private person, was Miss Shepherd. What name did you call that?’

‘A recluse.’

He nodded, as if filing away the word for future use. ‘A recluse. Aye.’

‘How many times did you go there?’