‘Anyway,’ Rennie nodded at the hole, ‘who’s to say she was digging someone up? Maybe she was burying something and someone disturbed her? ’

Idiot.

Logan pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts till he came to the number for the council historian.

‘No, think about it, witches are always burying things in graveyards by the light of the full moon, aren’t they? ’

‘She’s not a witch, she’s a teenager.’ He hit the button. Dialling.

‘Yeah, but maybe she thinks she’s a witch? That’s why she did that big magic circle on the kitchen floor when she killed Anthony Chung: witchcraft.’

‘She drew it because it was in the book. She necklaced Roy Forman because it was in the book.’ Logan headed back towards the car, damp grass tugging at his legs. ‘That’s what she does.’

Rennie slouched along after him, kicking through the weeds. ‘Anyway, it can’t be the skeleton from your caravan roof, can it? Don’t think there’s a single headstone in here more recent than eighteen ninety. Your body only died, what: thirty years ago? ’

Sodding hell. The idiot was right.

‘In that case it’s—’

The line clicked. ‘Hello? ’

‘Mr Hay? It’s DI McRae.’

‘Ah. . .’ A breath. ‘It’s not another dead body, is it? Only after last time—’

‘Someone’s been digging up graves.’

‘. . .OK. That’s not really my area of—’

‘From about the eighteen hundreds. I need you to find out who was buried where in. . .’ He stuck a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Where are we? ’

‘Sign out front says Kingleath Parish Church.’

‘Kingleath Parish Church, about five miles east of Inverurie. Place is a ruin.’

‘Hold on. . .’ There was the sound of fingers hammering away at a keyboard. ‘We’ve had students from RGU in computerizing a load of the parish records. . . Ah, you’re in luck – they’ve done Kingleath. Right, where was your grave? ’

Logan peered back towards the hole. ‘About fifteen feet from the west wall of the cemetery and a dozen from the north.’

‘OK. . . Any nearby graves you can give me names from? ’

‘Hold on.’ Logan slapped his hand over the mouthpiece and told Rennie to go look.

Two minutes later he was back, shaking one hand, clenching it into a fist then out again, blowing on the angry pink rash dotted with little pale spots. ‘Sodding nettles.’

‘Graves? ’

‘Nearest one I could read is a Mrs Katie Cook, snuffed it in 1892. About two plots to the left.’

Logan passed the info on and there were more clattering keystrokes.

‘Well, in that case we can narrow it down to one of two people: Miss Polly McGrath, spinster of the parish, born 1862, died 1885; or a Mr Nicholas Alexander Balfour, born 1835 died 1890. . .’ Pause. ‘Nicholas Balfour. Nicholas Balfour. Why does that. . .? Give me a second.’