‘Well, there are two TVs,’ said Hitchens. ‘One in the sitting room, another in the kitchen. Also a couple of radios, including a digital on the bedside table. When we turned it on, it was pre-tuned to BBC 7.’

‘Sorry, I haven’t gone digital yet. You’ll have to enlighten me.’

‘Re-runs of old BBC comedy shows and dramas. You know, Hancock’s Half Hour and Round the Horne.’

‘OK.’

‘There’s a decent stereo system, too. Nothing special – but women don’t care much about the technical details, do they? She obviously used it, because it was plugged in and switched on, just left on standby. And there was a CD in the slot – an Abba compilation.’

‘Why am I getting the impression of someone living on nostalgia?’

‘She certainly seems to have surrounded herself with sound. Or noise, at any rate.’

‘I think I’d be the same if I lived on my own. I’d need to drown out the silence somehow,’ said Murfin.

‘There’s quite a collection of CDs in the racks. She had some DVDs, too. Sleepless in Seattle. I still haven’t seen that.’

‘She must have bought those things from somewhere.’

‘Mail order, probably. They’re small enough items to go into the letter box. Unlike the package of books that Bernie Wilding tried to deliver.’

‘You know, there’s something strange about this house,’ said Cooper tentatively.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It doesn’t feel lived in.’

‘Rose Shepherd lived here.’

‘Hardly. She just seems to have existed.’

Kessen nodded at him, ‘What’s your impression, Cooper?’

‘Well, you can still detect traces of the family who lived here before her. On the other hand, Miss Shepherd has hardly left her imprint on the house at all. It’s almost as if she’d never been here.’

He looked out of the window at the garden. At least the armed officers deployed on Monday had been withdrawn, and the scene looked more peaceful again. Then he saw a tortoiseshell cat sitting under a tree, watching the house. When a SOCO walked across the lawn, the cat crouched cautiously, but didn’t move away.

‘Who searched the kitchen?’ said Cooper. ‘Did they find any cat food in the cupboards?’

Hitchens laughed. ‘I don’t think so. There was some fish in the fridge, though. Fresh salmon.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘Why, Ben?’

‘I think I’ve spotted Rose Shepherd’s means of not being alone.’

WITNESS APPEAL AFTER

FOXLOW SHOOTING

Detectives are appealing for witnesses after the murder of a woman in Foxlow on Sunday.

Miss Rose Shepherd, sixty-one, was killed by two shots from a high-powered rifle, fired from a field behind her house in Pinfold Lane during the early hours of the morning. Miss Shepherd had lived in the village for the past ten months, and police have yet to establish a motive for her killing.