‘Right,’ said Kessen. ‘Let’s take a closer look at Mr Grice. Get a detailed account of his last visit to Rose Shepherd. And check whether the tyres on his Land Rover are a match for the tracks from the field.’

‘We don’t actually have any evidence against Grice,’ pointed out Cooper.

‘If he isn’t implicated in the shooting, he won’t mind co-operating, will he?’

‘It doesn’t always work like that.’

‘His other clients won’t feel happy about the police asking questions. He must understand that co-operation is in his own best interests.’ Kessen seemed to think this settled the problem. ‘All right, I want Grice to list every single room he’s visited in Bain House. Then we can match up his account with the prints we lifted. In particular, I want to know whether he was ever in that master bedroom.’

Before he could move on, the phone rang, and Hitchens took the call. A smile came over his face.

‘It seems Mr Grice’s fingerprints were found in two of the bedrooms at Bain House, including the one where the victim slept. So if he says he was never in those rooms, he’s lying.’

Kessen looked around the group. ‘DS Fry. I know you’ve got a lot on, but perhaps you’d like to have a go at our Mr Grice this time.’

‘With pleasure.’

‘And who the heck are you?’ said Eric Grice, winding the orange cord around the handle of his power drill.

‘Detective Sergeant Fry.’

‘Oh, aye? Reckon you can get more out of me than your mates did? I don’t have anything more to tell, you know.’

‘Well, let’s see, shall we?’

‘You might have time to waste, but I haven’t. There’s work to do.’

‘Mr Grice, you’ve given us a list of the rooms you visited in Bain House. Are you sure this is a comprehensive list? You haven’t left any rooms out?’

‘No, it’s right,’ he said. ‘A lot of the work I did was on the outside, like.’

‘So the only room upstairs that you were ever present in is the bathroom – is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, Mr Grice, how do you explain the fact that we recovered your fingerprints from two of the bedrooms?’

‘The bedrooms?’

‘The master bedroom, where Rose Shepherd slept, and the second bedroom, just along the landing, where she kept her desk.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘You never did any jobs for her in those rooms?’