‘Ah. . . Well, it wasn’t really a—’ Rennie’s phone rang somewhere deep in his pocket. ‘Saved by the bell.’ He dragged it out, pressed a button, then stuck it to his ear. ‘Yeah. . . Uh-huh. . . Right. . . OK, I’ll tell him.’ Then he hung up and polished off the last of his Kit Kat.

‘Tell me what? ’

Rennie grinned, smears of chocolate sticking to his teeth. ‘They’ve found a hole. . .’

Logan peered over the edge of the hole at the dark, damp earth down below. ‘And they didn’t see anyone? ’

Rennie settled his backside against a lichen-covered tombstone and yawned. ‘Groundskeeper says it could’ve happened anytime in the last four weeks. Since the cutbacks, he only comes in once a month.’

The graveyard mouldered away behind a six-foot-high stone wall, circling a crumbling granite church – its walls streaked green with moss beneath the rusting gutters. Brambles ran rampant around the outskirts, tumbling barbed-wire tendrils reaching out to engulf the nearest graves. Silver-haired dandelions nodded their heads, going bald in the breeze. A butterfly bobbing above the long damp grass.

One and a half walls were all that was left of the church, a corner of thick granite blocks, the mortar crumbling away. Give it another hundred years and there’d be nothing left but a pile of rubble overgrown with weeds.

The hole was about three feet long, and four deep, surrounded by docken spears and violent-fuchsia rosebay willowherb. Soil made a sprawling heap along one side.

‘And there was definitely a body in here? ’

‘Difficult to tell, apparently. When the church burned down in fifty-two it took most of the local records with it. Half the headstones in this section are knackered or missing.’

Logan crouched down; a cascade of dirt spiralled down into the earth. The smell of mouldy bread greeted him. ‘Looks like we’ve got spade-marks on the hole. Should be able to match them if we can find the shovel.’

Another yawn. ‘You think it’s really her? Agnes Garfield? ’

‘Mentally unstable woman stops taking her medication, kills abusive boyfriend.’

‘Yeah, but digs up bodies in a cemetery? ’ Rennie ran a hand through his spiky blond hair. ‘I mean, I’ve had some mental girlfriends in my time, but not grave robbing mental.’

‘Might not even be her.’ Logan stood, brushed the dirt from his hands. ‘Get the SEB down here: I want to know when this was dug. Is this the skeleton we’ve already got, or something new? ’

‘If it is, she’s a total nutcase.’ Rennie wrapped his arms around himself, yawning and shuddering. ‘Anyone capable of doing that to poor old Fusty Forman needs locking up. And I’m talking: straitjacket, padded wallpaper, and throw away the key. Not like he was cheating on her, was it? ’

Just a random act of violence? Not likely. ‘He must’ve done something.’