In the rooms below, two enormous machines rattled away unattended, and stacks of shuttles sat in alcoves along the walls. There were wicker baskets and wooden trolleys, shelves full of old tools and equipment. An ancient typewriter, dusty cardboard boxes. Cooper could smell lubricating oil and hear the chug of the looms, leather belts spinning over wheels in the glass-roofed sheds. A tiny cubicle looked to be an overseer’s office, dusty ledgers still open on the desk, wire-framed glasses poking out of an ancient spectacle case. Visitors’ direction signs pointed towards a distant doorway – the bobbin room.

Cooper turned back. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said.

In a distant corner of the shopping village, he found Eva Hooper. Her unit sold prints of Peak District landscapes, ethnic gifts, pottery, leather-work, gemstones. And, of course, a range of postcards, calendars and greeting cards – anything that tourists might be interested in.

‘Yes, I think she was here,’ she said. ‘It was Saturday, so we were quite busy.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘If it had been during the week, I might have remembered her better.’

‘Did she buy anything?’

‘I’m not sure. If she paid by cash, there won’t be any record of her name.’

‘OK.’

‘You could ask my assistant, but she’s not here today. She works for me part-time when I’m busy.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Frances – we call her Fran.’

Cooper paused with his pen poised over his notebook. He’d spoken to a Frances very recently. It wasn’t a common name, but coincidences did happen . . .

‘Frances what?’

‘Birtland. She lives a couple of miles away, in Foxlow.’

‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘I know.’

Fry was satisfied that she’d done everything she could to prevent any further loss of evidence from the house at Darwin Street. She’d taken all the actions necessary to preserve the scene and create a log. The examination had been thorough. True, in an ideal world, it could have happened a bit sooner. But since when had this world been ideal? At least it had been done before any cleaning up or salvage operations started.

Now she was anxious to get Brian Mullen back at the scene as soon as she could, in case any more items came to light that needed to be recovered. Once that had been done, she could relax and let the clean-up get under way.

The good news from the fire officer was that significant evidence often remained, even after the most destructive of fires. She recognized some of the terms he used, but mostly his optimistic tone. The experts had even agreed on where the fire started, though apparently Quinton Downie had insisted on defining a radius of error about a metre around the likely source.

One of the SOCOs assigned to Darwin Street was Liz Petty. Some people turned up everywhere. Inside the hallway of the house, Petty was unpacking another holdall full of stepping plates.