‘I knew that if you lot found out I was there you’d assume I was responsible. And I’d have had to explain what I’d been doing behind the wall. Plus, I knew that if I went to prison it would be much harder for me to end my own life.’

James wrapped up the interview after explaining to Nash that he would remain under police guard – as well as suicide watch – while they considered whether he should be charged with any offence. Those being considered were withholding information from the police and perverting the course of justice.

‘But you do believe me, don’t you?’ Nash said. ‘I’ve told you exactly what happened and what I heard.’

James chose not to answer the question. He wanted to give more thought to what they’d been told before coming to a decision.

DC Abbott played the recorded interview back on her phone as they drove to Kendal so James could use it to make notes and draw up a list of further questions he needed answers to.

William Nash’s extraordinary revelations were making his heart beat at a rapid rate. What the man claimed to have seen and heard tied in with the evidence from both crime scenes and with what Neil Savage experienced before he was forced to leave Oaktree Farm on Christmas Eve.

The only thing missing was an eyewitness account of what had happened after Charlotte – Megan, he corrected himself – was actually stabbed.

It was a pity Nash had fallen down the cellar steps, James thought. But then if he had managed to get into the house minutes sooner than he did he might well have ended up dead himself.

‘I’m still struggling to take it all in,’ Abbott said once the recording had finished playing. ‘That poor girl did not deserve what happened to her. And it beggars belief that the Batemans got away with what they did for so long.’

‘That’s what makes this so bloody shocking,’ James said. ‘It’s hard to know how they lived with themselves. Between them they murdered two people and they replaced their own lost child with someone else’s. It’s fucking sick.’

‘But it eventually came full circle, guv. The death of the child they abducted provoked Robert into killing his wife before turning the gun on himself.’

‘I just wish we knew exactly how it played out at the end,’ James said. ‘Did the pair exchange words while the girl was lying dead or dying on the floor? Or did Robert simply pick up the shotgun and kill his wife and then himself because he couldn’t take any more and decided they’d be better off dead?’

‘I’m guessing it’s something we’ll never know,’ Abbott said.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

James briefed the team as soon as he got to the office. There was a collective intake of breath as he relayed what William Nash had told them.