The sun shone as Denzil walked slowly down the street that led into the square, where racks of Nepalese and Indian scarves fluttered, next to multicoloured, mirrored cotton bags, and skeins of brass bells, wind chimes and bamboo pan pipes jingled softly. The smell of patchouli and incense drifted through open shop doors. It was the warmest day since last autumn. Denzil looked at the notices on boards and in windows, adverts for yoga classes, meditation groups, tarot readers, vegan caterers, holistic therapists, dreamcatcher workshops, t’ai chi, past-life researchers, Buddhist retreats. The cafe had set two tables out on the pavement, so he got a mint tea and watched the few people out shopping, the sun on his face. A gentle place, he thought, calm and quiet but probably not prosperous. He wondered how the shopkeepers made much of a living, except in summer, when there were a couple of big music festivals. There was a post office-cum-general store and a greengrocer, but no butcher, bank, bookies, supermarket. Presumably, everything had to be bought in Lafferton or at the hypermarkets in the new retail park west of Bevham. Who lived in Starly? The young and single, the elderly, whose village had grown with the New Age arrivals, some thirty years ago. After them had come the alternatives and the eco-warriors. Somehow, people survived here in bubbles of hope. Starly – gentle, peaceful, amiable Starly, with the discoloured, half-naked body of a young man alone in an empty, dirty room above a shop. Did anything else that spoke of squalor and self-harm, violence and other dark things lurk behind the tolerant, peace-loving face of this village?

He walked along to the Chinese pharmacy and looked up. The flat above was curtainless and clearly still empty and the sun shining on the windows showed up a film of dirt – who bothered to clean windows in places like that? But the chemist’s shop windows below were sparkling, the displays well ordered. It was open.

Denzil went in as a woman and young child left and he waited until the door closed behind them before showing his warrant card. No shopkeeper wanted a police visit advertised to the world, and as soon as he had glanced at it, the man went over, locked the door and turned the sign to Closed.

‘Please come into the back.’

There was a cubbyhole office and a small stockroom, with shelves of jars, bottles and boxes labelled in Chinese script. The man was younger than Denzil had expected, small, slightly plump, with rimless glasses. He looked apprehensive.

‘If this is again about the terrible incident in the room above, I know nothing. I was away, I was in Manchester at my uncle’s funeral, I have already made a statement about it.’