‘Keep me informed of his condition,’ he said.

‘And what about you, guv?’

‘I intend to go and check his house. Maybe there’s something there he didn’t want us to find.’

Before heading off, James removed Nash’s key from the van’s ignition. There were four other keys on the fob and one of them looked like it would open his front door.

James also took Nash’s mobile phone and wallet from his jacket pocket and placed them into evidence bags, which he took with him.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

On the way back to William Nash’s house James arranged for DS Stevens and a forensic team to meet him there.

He had no idea what he expected to find, but he was sure it would be something that linked Kirkby Abbey’s Mr Fixit to the Christmas Eve killings.

Why else would the man have sped away when he saw the patrol car? And what else could have encouraged him to try to kill himself by driving into the wall?

If he doesn’t die then we might well get to find out the answers, James thought. But if he does die then his secrets will never come out.

They already knew he’d lied about never going into the hidden space behind the wall. And it was a safe bet that he was the one who’d been spying on the family through the peephole. But that did not necessarily mean that he was there on Christmas Eve. Or that they were his shoeprints in the snow that Robert Bateman spotted going towards the exterior cellar door.

Nash’s actions had propelled him to the top of the list of suspects. And it was time they found out much more about the man.

James’s heart was still in a sprint as he drove. Watching Nash plough into the dry-stone wall had shaken him up more than he cared to acknowledge. The sight of the damaged van and the man’s blood-covered face kept pushing itself into his thoughts. Bearing witness to something so traumatic was bound to have an impact. What he needed was a hot drink to calm his nerves, or perhaps something stronger.

But there was no time for that right now. It would have to wait until they’d found out if there were vital clues waiting to be discovered inside William Nash’s home.

James got there before anyone else but didn’t venture inside until DS Stevens and the forensic team arrived. They were accompanied by two patrol cars, each containing two officers.

James briefed them all in the yard as a sharp easterly wind whipped up the snow around their legs.

He told them about the crash and about Nash’s prints being discovered in the space above the cellar at Oaktree Farm.