As she reversed to do her three-point turn, she saw Ben Cooper standing in the gateway of Bain House. He’d stopped to speak to one of the SOCOs, Liz Petty. It wasn’t clear whether she was working the scene, because she was still wearing her navy blue sweater with the Derbyshire Constabulary logo rather than a protective scene suit. Fry watched them for a moment as she changed gear. She saw Petty push back her dark hair and confine it in a clip behind her head. Her cheeks looked slightly pink as she laughed at something Cooper was saying.

‘They make a grand couple, don’t they?’ said Murfin, picking crumbs off the seat. ‘Ben and Liz, I mean,’ he added, as if it needed explaining.

‘Are they sleeping together?’ asked Fry, as casually as she could manage.

Murfin stopped hunting for crumbs. She could feel his eyes on her, wary and suspicious.

‘I dunno,’ he said.

‘You’re his friend, aren’t you, Gavin?’

‘Me and Ben? We go back years.’

‘You must know, then.’

Murfin shook his head. ‘It would only be gossip.’

He lowered his head between his knees, as if searching the floor for more debris.

‘I just wondered,’ said Fry.

In reply, all she got was a mumble from somewhere under the seat.

‘What did you say, Gavin?’

‘I said I can’t hear you.’

Fry let out the clutch suddenly. As the car jerked forward, Murfin’s head shot up from the footwell. His face was beetroot red from the blood rushing into it.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘You really are trying to kill me.’

Cooper went into the back garden of Bain House to look at the field where the SOCOs were still working under a white tent. Liz Petty had confirmed what he’d already guessed – the Foxlow shooting had put a lot of extra pressure on Scientific Support.

One of the complications was obvious. In effect, there were four separate crime scenes to be examined. For a start, there was Rose Shepherd’s bedroom, and the other rooms of her house. Officers conducting the search might hope to learn something about the victim’s life that would lead to her killers, or at least suggest a motive for her murder. But if, as they suspected, the attacker hadn’t entered the victim’s home, or even made direct contact with her, there would be no traces of him in the house. No DNA or fingerprints; no fibres or evidence of any kind.