She finished the call and looked around the office. Everyone was busy with tasks connected to the Rose Shepherd enquiry. Everyone. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t demand a bit of their time.

‘Hey, Ben, would you take a look at this?’

‘What have you got?’ said Cooper from across the room.

But before Fry could show him the photo of the toy dinosaur, her phone rang. It was pretty much a one-way conversation: ‘Great, OK . . . I see. Yes, sir, right away.’

Cooper was still hovering at his desk when she finished. ‘What’s up?’

‘The DCI wants us in for a meeting, right now. HOLMES has finished processing Rose Shepherd’s diary, address book and the other documents found in her house. Remember the mysterious “SN” mentioned in the diary? There’s only one name in her papers with matching initials: Simon Nichols.’

‘Simon Nichols . . .’ said Cooper, responding to a vague familiarity.

‘That’s it. Does it mean anything to you?’

‘Isn’t he in Fairport Convention?’

‘In what?’

‘It’s a band. Folk rock.’

‘Oh, right. You think Rose Shepherd might have been a folk rock groupie?’

‘No, it must be another Simon Nichols.’

‘HOLMES can’t give us any clues as to who this Simon Nichols is, or where we can find him. But the incident room are checking all the usual intelligence. There’s also a team going through all other sources: phone directory, electoral roll, DVLC . . . We need to track down any Nichols in the area.’

‘In the area?’ said Cooper. ‘He isn’t necessarily –’

‘I know. But we’ve got to start somewhere. We should start getting results soon. Meanwhile, does anybody have any thoughts?’

‘Whoever killed Rose Shepherd didn’t enter the house, so far as we can tell,’ said Hitchens. ‘So we can conclude that he wasn’t worried about there being evidence in the house that would lead us to him.’

‘That assumes the crime was carefully thought out beforehand.’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Of course, it might only have been the shooting and the getaway that were planned,’ suggested Cooper. ‘If he thought of killing Rose Shepherd as a way of solving some problem, he might have overlooked what would happen once her body was found.’

‘Perhaps he knew there was nothing in the house that could lead back to him,’ said Hitchens. ‘If Miss Shepherd didn’t know him, if he was a hired professional, there’d be no direct connection between him and his victim.’

‘That’s logical,’ said Kessen. ‘But there’s one other alternative.’

‘Yes?’

‘What if he’d already searched the house and removed anything incriminating? Then he’d feel able to carry out the killing from a safe distance.’

‘Well, it could explain why there are no personal letters in the house. But who would have the opportunity to do that? The security at Bain House was too tight, and Miss Shepherd was rarely off the premises.’