No response. Dani walked along the hallway, glancing into the old-fashioned dining room and the lounge that led off from it. No one in there. No one in plain sight anyway. As she reached the foot of the stairs, Dani looked over the picture frames along the wall leading up the stairs. Many were several decades old, black and white portraits.

‘Hello,’ she shouted again.

She heard a creaking floorboard from an upstairs room. Dani held her breath as she listened. Her heart was drumming in her chest. The fabric of her blouse pulsated with each beat.

Another creak.

‘Easton, get over here,’ Dani called, sounding panicked, her thin nerves getting the better of her.

Easton came up to Dani’s side. He had the second glove over his left hand, and was clutching a bundle of envelopes. Dani looked at the plastic window of the top envelope.

‘Mrs Staunton, are you home?’ Dani shouted. ‘It’s the police.’

Footsteps sounded above.

Dani braced herself, then flinched when a figure appeared at the top of the stairs and she had to fight to push the memory away.

‘What on earth are you doing in my house!’ croaked the doddery silver-haired lady who came into view, a thick pink dressing gown wrapped around her.

Dani let out a relieved sigh. She turned to Easton and was sure she saw him wipe away another smirk.

Thirty minutes later Dani was back in her car, heading through thick traffic to Birmingham city centre. She never had got to the bottom of who, or what, she’d seen in the upstairs window of June Staunton’s house. The old lady had sworn she’d been asleep until she’d heard the doorbell ring, but had been groggy and tired and it had taken her several minutes to muster the strength to get out of bed. She had no idea why the back door was unlocked, was adamant she would never leave it like that, and had no idea why there were footprints on her lawn.

Dani had checked the upstairs, claiming that she wanted to get a better look at the crime scene from the higher vantage point, but other than the unlocked back door and the prints in the grass, there was no other sign of anyone else having been there, intruder or otherwise.

Had the figure in the window been there at all or was Dani now seeing things? That wouldn’t be a good turn of events.

It was clear Mrs Staunton was rattled by the whole experience, particularly given the murder scene across the road, but Dani decided she had more pressing matters to attend to. Easton was competent enough to deal both with the old lady and the team of forensics who Dani had ordered do a sweep of the house to find any evidence of an intruder. Though she suspected Easton believed she was making more out of the situation than she should have been.