Well, she thought, looking around and seeing nothing but sheep in every direction, there’s a simple remedy for that. She moved a few yards away from her flattened spot on the ground, checked for nettles and thistles, then took off her tights, squatted and peed. At least a woman could do that during surveillance in the countryside, Annie thought with a smile. It was a bit different if you were sitting cooped up in your car on a city street, as she had found out more than once in the past. Before she had finished, two low-flying jets from a nearby U.S. airbase screamed over, seeming no more than twenty feet or so from her head. She wondered if the pilots had got a good view. She gave them the finger, the way Americans did.

Back on her stomach, she tried her mobile again on the off chance that it might just have been local interference before, but still no luck. The moor was a dead zone.

How long should she wait? she wondered. And why hadn’t he come? The money was just lying there. What if he didn’t come before nightfall and the lovers returned, more important things than foot-and-mouth on their minds? Several thousand quid as well as a quick bonk would be an unexpected bonus for them.

Her stomach rumbling, tongue dry against the roof of her mouth, Annie picked up the binoculars again and trained them on the shelter.

Michelle drove Banks to a pub she knew near the A1, wondering more than once on the way why she was doing this. But she knew the answer. She was bored with routine, bored first with tracking down the paperwork, and then bored with reading through it. She needed to get out, blow the cobwebs away, and this was the opportunity to do that and work as well.

She also had to admit that she was intrigued to meet someone who had been a friend of Graham Marshall’s, especially as this Banks, despite a touch of gray in his closely cropped black hair, didn’t look old enough. He was slim, perhaps stood three or four inches taller than her five foot five, had an angular face with lively blue eyes, and a tan. He showed no great clothes sense but was dressed in basic Marks & Sparks casuals—light sports jacket, gray chinos, blue denim shirt unbuttoned at the collar—and the look suited him. Some men his age only looked good in a business suit, Michelle thought. Anything else made them the male version of mutton dressed up as lamb. But on some older men casual looked natural. It did on Banks.

“Is it to be DI Hart, then?” Banks asked.

Michelle glanced sideways at him. “I suppose you can call me Michelle, if you want.”

“Michelle it is, then. Nice name.”

Was he flirting? “Come off it,” Michelle said.

“No, seriously. I mean it. No need to blush.”

Angry at herself for letting her embarrassment show, Michelle said, “Just as long as you don’t start singing the old Beatles song.”