It was George Elkin who opened the front door and walked with us down the drive as if to make sure we actually got into our car. But once we’d reached the lane, he stopped and looked across the fields that spread out towards the horizon. It was the middle of the day and the sun was directly overhead. I could smell salt in the air. The grass was bowing gently in the breeze.

‘It may seem all very stupid to you,’ he said. ‘But this is what it’s all about.’ He pointed. ‘That’s Charles le Mesurier’s land. He’s sold it to Électricité du Nord, presumably at a massive profit to himself, and that’s where they’ll build the converter stations, three of them, covering twenty-five acres, with facility areas and new roads attached. Do you know what a converter station looks like? It’s concrete and metal with cables and fences. It’s probably the ugliest building in the world and that’s where it’s going to be. No wonder Henry and Susan are thinking of leaving. They’ve lived in that house all their married life, but it’ll be valueless, of course. They’ll be ruined.

‘But it doesn’t end there,’ Elkin went on. ‘They’re putting a transition chamber on Longis Beach, where the sea and the land cables will connect. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much wildlife after that.’ His finger swept across the horizon. ‘And they’re going to run a 1,400-megawatt link cable across there, through Longis Common. Yes, you’re right, Mr Hawthorne. They’re going to dig up my old grandpa. But he’s not the only one. There are more than a thousand bodies buried there, poor souls who died in the most dreadful way, starved to death, tortured, murdered.’

He stood there, his face expressionless, his eyes far away. It took him a while to return to us.

‘I know you’re only doing your job, Mr Hawthorne, and you don’t really care how you get your results. I was there when you were giving your talk and it struck me then that you have absolutely no heart at all. You don’t believe in the law. You don’t want to help people or society. You don’t seem to have any understanding of morality at all. You’re a detective. That’s all that matters to you.

‘Well, I hope you do find whoever it was who killed Charles le Mesurier. It’s wrong that such a person should be at large. But when you arrive at that moment, I hope you’ll reflect on this. As the two of you stand face to face, you and the killer, I’m not sure there’ll be a great difference between the two of you. I think you live by the same rules.’