‘Oh, there was a package. It was a bit too big to get in the letter box. Can I give it to you?’

‘Yes, please. I’ll let you have a receipt.’

Wilding handed him a small parcel about nine inches long. ‘Miss Shepherd never got much mail. I hope it was nothing to do with what happened to her.’

‘Well, it was the reason she was found today, instead of in a week’s time.’

By the time Diane Fry arrived in Foxlow, there was no room for anyone to park anywhere near Bain House. She had to leave her Peugeot on the roadside close to a stone wall and walk to the RV point. Cooper met her near the gates as he was clearing the way for Bernie Wilding to get his van out.

‘Can you bring me up to speed, Ben?’ she asked.

‘Sure. I’ve made notes.’

‘I thought you would have.’

Cooper ran through the details. Fry listened carefully, finding nothing to fault him on. He thought he’d done pretty well, considering he hadn’t been at the scene much longer than she had herself.

‘She sounds like a bit of a recluse,’ said Fry when he’d finished.

He wondered if Fry felt the same slight shiver of recognition that he did at some of the details. There were times in many people’s lives when they went to great lengths to avoid contact with anyone else. It wasn’t so unusual. Just a bit extreme, perhaps, in Rose Shepherd’s case.

‘Actually, I used to know a lady who was a real recluse,’ he said. ‘Old Annie, we called her. When I was a child, she lived in an old cottage near the farm. She must have been there for donkey’s years, because the place was getting very run down. But she didn’t seem to have any relatives – or if she did, they never bothered to visit her. Annie stayed in her house watching TV and listening to the radio, much like Miss Shepherd must have done.’

They began to walk towards the house. The front door stood open, officers still coming and going with bagged items for examination.

‘No one visited Annie at all?’ asked Fry.

‘Well, Mum used to call on her occasionally to see if she was all right. A few times a year, she was invited to our house. Boxing Day, that was a time when we always had to have her round. As kids, we used to dread her coming.’

‘Why?’

‘Annie was one of those lonely people who didn’t speak to anyone for weeks on end, then couldn’t help talking far too much when she finally got into company. It was as if she had to prove to herself that she could still hold a conversation, that somebody would listen to her when she was speaking. I suppose she needed to be sure that she still existed in other people’s eyes.’