‘Let’s keep going,’ said Mitch to everyone. ‘We have evidence to tie one of the suspects to the scene. Let’s see what we are tying him to.’

The deeper the forensic team probed the worse the smell became. Chandler watched them pass VapoRub around to smear under their noses to dampen the scent. Someone finally offered him the jar and he used it, but the sour, throat-clogging stench of death forced its way through the heavy stink of menthol all the same.

A sweep soon brought the first hint of body: a hand, bare and uncovered, the skin loose and grey like dripping candle wax, the nails cracked, rough and square cut, those of a man who worked with his hands, the withering of the skin giving the appearance that they had grown since death. Work paused and everyone absorbed the now visual confirmation that they had a body.

With delicate work the face was revealed, the eyelids thankfully closed. Chandler noted how well preserved the body was, the lack of moisture in the air assisting and making it hard to tell at first glance how long the body had been buried. His guess was at least a few weeks, given the decomposition. What he could tell was that the victim was male, early thirties, short brown hair with a broken nose – whether it’d been broken pre- or post-mortem, it was impossible to know at this stage.

‘How did he die?’ Mitch broke the silence to ask the question.

That was easy, even from Chandler’s limited perspective. With the greying of the tissue-paper-like skin, the dark discolouration and frayed rope fibres around the throat, it was evident.

‘Strangled,’ he said, glancing at Gabriel to see how the proposed victim took the news. Gabriel was staring at the murdered body with a look of shock.

‘With?’ interrupted Mitch.

‘Looks like rope,’ said the lead forensic officer.

‘Photograph it. Take some fibres and bag them,’ said Mitch. He turned to the lead officer. ‘I want to find out who the deceased is straight away. Check him for ID.’

Mitch turned from them and called over Yohan who held the satellite phone.

‘We have one,’ he bellowed down the handset. ‘A body. Male, early thirties, no ID as yet.’ A smile crept over his face, a smile Chandler knew well. Things were finally going Mitch’s way.

With the first body discovered, the forensic team turned their attention to the other graves. Each patch of disturbed soil revealed another victim, soon numbering five in total, in more advanced states of decomposition than the first, the sex of each impossible to determine. But the manner of death seemed to be the same, strangulation, and an unspoken assumption that it had been a horrible demise.