DS Ben Deedes, heavy torch in hand, slowly climbed up the creaking ladder and through the loft hatch as far as his head and shoulders. Slowly he shone his torch all round. At first he thought, it’s exactly as Blundell had said, empty apart from spiders webs, dust, mouse droppings and not much else, and he felt tempted to call down to Fellowes as tell him that the loft was empty.
But he was a conscientious man and flashed his torch around again and then once again in a slow methodical sweep.
The line of floor joists, 8” x 2” in size, eighteen inches apart stretched out before him deep into the shadows where the pitched roof met the walls. Beneath the joists lay the ceilings of the rooms below, the space between the joists full of dust, fluff, droppings and a couple of mouse traps with wha
