‘S’cuse.’ The kid leaned across to deposit the oversized plate in front of Aaron, before shuffling round to deliver an equally large portion of pie and mash to Frank. He straightened. ‘Get you anything else?’

Hawkins caught Chris’s hungry stare and nodded, waiting while he and Amala chose from the table menu before caving in and ordering something for herself.

She let the kid disappear towards the till before she spoke again, explaining the sequence of events that led her and Chris to Thundridge. She described their visit to the church, and the unexpected attack.

Amala responded first. ‘You didn’t hear the weapon being fired, ma’am?’

‘I don’t remember any kind of gunshot at all.’ She looked at Chris, who shook his head.

‘Air rifle,’ Frank mumbled through a mouthful of pie.

Hawkins turned towards him. ‘What?’

‘That’s why you didn’t hear anything, and why there were only small clouds of dust from the tower. Country types use low-pressure air rifles to control unwanted vermin, because there’s no bang to scare the target.’ He responded to the inquisitive stares. ‘City of Newcastle Rifle Club junior champion, 1982.’

Amala looked at Hawkins. ‘Do you want me to start checking gun licences in the area, ma’am?’

‘No point.’ Frank reloaded his fork. ‘Don’t need one for that type of weapon. Only restriction is that you’re over eighteen and buy it over the counter. Other than that, any old divvie can have one.’

Hawkins said, ‘There’s no register, no way to trace owners?’

He finished his mouthful. ‘Not unless they’ve been done for illegal use in the past.’

‘Well, there’s something we can look into, at least.’ She glanced at Amala, who gave an affirmative nod, before turning back to Frank. ‘Are you telling us you can use these things anywhere?’

‘Only on private land with the owner’s permission, and nowhere near the public, according to law. But as your shooter clearly has no lookout for the main one of those rules, I can’t see him asking for consent.’

‘What about the projectiles?’ Hawkins asked. ‘If we can retrieve one from the scene, would ballistics be able to narrow down the type of weapon we’re looking for?’

He deliberated for a moment. ‘Wouldn’t have thought so. Pellets are standard. You’ll do well to find the ones that hit the ground, and the others will have shattered on impact with the stone. As far as the gun itself goes, there’s a massive selection out there. To cover the ground you mentioned, he’ll have needed a rifle, although even they get twitchy at distance, which is probably why he missed, as it goes.’

‘Won’t complain about that, then,’ she muttered, as the waiter returned with three more plates and distributed them around the table.