Cooper remembered that, too. Nottinghamshire Police had decided to take the contents of hundreds of household bins and analyse them to see what people were throwing away. A messy job, but interesting results. They found nearly ninety per cent of domestic rubbish contained information that would be helpful to fraudsters. Most of the bins had the full name and address of someone in the household, and many had details of bank account numbers and sort codes. Some had the full set. Helpful? That was more like making someone a Christmas present of your bank account. PC Judson would be horrified.

‘The one thing we’ve found is her passport,’ said Hitchens.

‘A UK passport?’

‘Yes. Rose Ann Shepherd, British citizen, born 1944 in London . . .’ He flicked through the pages. ‘No stamps.’

‘What about an address?’

‘Your address doesn’t appear in your passport.’

‘No, but most people give a next of kin. A friend or relative, anyway – maybe two.’

‘You’re right.’ Hitchens turned to the back page again. ‘Nope, not in Miss Shepherd’s case.’

‘No one she wanted informed in the event of an accident?’

‘I guess not. You know, this passport looks almost unused to me. Mine has got a bit creased at the spine and started to turn up at one corner.’

‘Well, that would explain why there are no stamps.’

‘Not necessarily. It just means she hasn’t been outside Europe with it. Or rather, outside the Schengen area. You don’t get stamped moving between Schengen countries.’

In her passport photograph, Miss Shepherd was smartly turned out. Her hair was a darker shade of grey, swept back in a business-like manner to match a white blouse, discreet ear studs and a hint of make-up. She had sharp blue eyes and a direct gaze, with the faintest of smiles at the camera.

Hitchens took a call on his mobile. ‘OK, that’s great. Thanks.’ He turned to Kessen. ‘There was a Vauxhall Astra seen in the village in the early hours of Sunday morning. It doesn’t belong to any of the residents, so far as we can tell. One witness is almost sure she’s seen it in the village before – and the previous occasion was late at night, too.’

‘Any details?’

‘Blue.’

‘Dark blue? Could have been black in the dark?’

‘Nope. Light blue, seen under the streetlight near the phone box. No reg, but it probably started with an X, so it wasn’t a new model.’

‘You know, we need the media to come on board early in this one, Paul. There are no obvious leads from the house. We’ve got to get appeals out to locate the driver of that Astra, and anyone who had contact with Rose Shepherd in the last forty-eight hours. No – the last two weeks. God, I don’t know – any contact with her, full stop.’

Cooper looked up, surprised to hear the DCI getting even a little bit rattled in public.