‘The householder. The husband of the dead woman, the father of the two dead children. He’s in hospital right now, but I’m sure he’ll be pleased to know that he installed the smoke alarm in the wrong place. I bet it’s the information he’s been waiting to hear.’

Downie scowled, and seemed about to lose his temper. ‘I’m just doing my job,’ he snapped.

‘So you said.’

She watched him stamp off in his scene suit, like an angry paper bag.

It wasn’t much of a moral victory, though. Fry knew how much she relied on people like Downie following procedures to the letter. If she didn’t have a watertight chain of custody when evidence was presented in court, it could undermine the whole case.

Now the scene was filling up with personnel. Scientific Support had allocated a couple of SOCOs, who’d waited for Downie to arrive from the lab at Chorley. And the two civilians she could see approaching the outer cordon looked as though they might be the insurance assessors. Great.

Fry tried to look on the bright side. This would make a good impression on her next personal development review. It was real team work.

Brian Mullen’s hands were still bandaged, and he fumbled a bit taking off the radio headphones when he saw his visitor coming. From the look on his face, Fry thought he was going to leap out of bed and make a run for it. The ward sister had said yesterday that he’d been so frightened he’d fought against being kept in hospital. But what was he frightened of? Not her, surely.

‘How are you getting on, Mr Mullen?’ she asked, pulling a chair up to the side of his bed.

‘Oh, not too bad,’ he said warily. ‘You’re the police, are you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Everyone’s been very good to me. A vicar came round. And there was a counsellor, to see if I needed help.’

Now the pinkness in his cheeks had subsided, Mullen looked very pale. He had the sort of narrow, angular face and waxy skin that she’d only ever seen in Englishmen and some Scandinavians. His voice sounded hoarse from the effects of smoke inhalation, and he reached for a glass of water standing on the bedside cabinet. He had to hold the glass carefully between the tips of his fingers because the bandages got in the way.

‘I hope the hospital have managed to keep the press away, sir,’ said Fry.

‘The press? I never even thought about them.’ Mullen looked suddenly panicked. ‘You’ve got to talk to the doctors. Tell them they have to let me go home. I need to get out of here.’

‘You’re much better here for now, sir. You’ll be able to leave when you’re fit. Meanwhile, we need to talk to you about what happened at your house.’