‘Well, you wouldn’t go lamping in a white car, would you? You want your target to focus on the light, not on the paintwork of your bonnet.’

‘Nothing else, apart from the tyre marks?’

‘Nope. I was hoping for some shell casings. A brass casing could give us some prints, or there might be marks left by the weapon’s extractor or firing pin. But there’s nothing here that we can see.’

‘All right. Thanks.’

‘So it looks as though the suspect didn’t bother going into the house. Clever.’

‘Clever?’

‘Well, it makes it more difficult for us. We always have a better chance of coming up with something from a closed scene. Like the bedroom, for instance. But a ploughed field? And two days after the incident? Better start praying for a miracle.’

Kessen stared at the house. ‘All right, it was clever. But I wonder what the shooter did to get Rose Shepherd’s attention.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Well, if he made the hit from the field, he must have found some way to get his victim to the window. I can’t believe he was prepared to sit out here all night on the off-chance that she’d decide to get out of bed and take a look at the stars.’

‘A phone call, I reckon,’ said Hitchens. ‘It’d be easy enough to phone her on a mobile from the car.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s starting to look like a professional job, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Kessen nodded. ‘Yes, he could easily have phoned Miss Shepherd and woken her up. But what did he say to get her to come to the window? What could he have said that would make her walk straight into his sights?’

While Abbott organized a detailed search of the field, Cooper took the chance to report what the postman Bernie Wilding had told him about never seeing Miss Shepherd’s face clearly.

‘I could understand it if she was physically disfigured,’ said Hitchens. ‘If she was a burns victim, or something. That would explain why she never went out, and didn’t want people to see her.’

‘But she wasn’t disfigured, either in real life or in her passport photo. How old is that passport? When was it issued?’

‘Issued May 2000. Expires 2010.’

‘What about motive?’ asked Fry. ‘Do you think someone in the village might have had a grudge against her?’

‘If she didn’t have contact with anyone in the village, how could someone have a grudge against her?’

‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have contact with anyone. We don’t know anything about her history, so we can’t guess. Where do we start?’

‘There’s one place we can start,’ said Kessen. ‘We need a list of individuals in the locality with firearms certificates. What about this farmer, what’s his name?’

‘Neville Cross?’

‘He’s a neighbour, isn’t he?’