‘It’s not a question of trust. It’s a question of chain of responsibility.’ Fielding looked around the car park. ‘I’d appreciate the loan of some uniforms to secure the scene till my team gets here.’

‘Where’s her possessions?’ Paula asked. ‘The stuff you ID’d her from?’

‘Bagged up,’ Franklin said. ‘We’re not fucking turnips. We do know how to handle evidence.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Grimshaw?’

A chubby detective in a white suit that clung to the contours of his body approached. ‘Sir?’

‘The victim’s clothes and bag. You need to hand them over to the nice ladies from Bradfield.’ Grimshaw grinned and rolled off towards the line of vehicles. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’

‘Cameras,’ Fielding said. ‘Where’s the nearest coverage?’

Franklin slowly made a 360-degree scan of the surrounding area. ‘There’s nothing on this road. It’s four miles north to a junction with a main road, five miles south-west, where you came from. There’s a couple of speed cameras on each of those, but I doubt there’s anything much in terms of number recognition till you get to the outskirts of Todmorden, Hebden or Colne. Sorry.’ He turned and walked away, a jerk of his head telling his team to follow.

Paula watched them cross the car park and reconvene round the nearest car. ‘Nice to see DCI Franklin staying true to himself.’

‘Whatever you lot did to piss him off, it worked.’ Fielding sounded less than thrilled.

‘His bark is worse than his bite. He won’t obstruct us.’

‘He bloody better not.’ Fielding took out her phone and made a call. ‘I need a full homicide forensic team up here… PC Okeke has the directions… There’s no doors, so I won’t need a door-to-door team, just some uniforms to secure the scene. What I need is for you to plot this locus on a map then figure out which are the nearest roads with ANPR. Get the data and work out which vehicles disappear between cameras where there’s a turn-off on to this road… Soon as.’

Grimshaw returned with a couple of sealed blue polythene evidence sacks and a sheet of paper at risk of being snatched by the bitter wind. ‘You’ll need to sign for this,’ he said, sounding as if he was already arguing with a refusal.

Paula dug in her bag for a pen and scribbled a signature on the damp paper. ‘Thank you,’ she said politely, holding out her hand for the sacks. Grimshaw dropped them at her feet and headed back to his boss. She liked to think she’d never been that petty to anyone her boss despised. She couldn’t be certain, however.