Mark wondered whether to write it down. But it sounded too strange, and his hand wouldn’t write any more, anyway. Instead, he repeated it to himself, over and over, in his head. A dead woman dancing. She looked like a dead woman, dancing.

2

Fifteen miles to the north, in the town of Edendale, the battle had been going on for an hour and a quarter already. The police officers in the front line were battered and breathing hard, their faces swollen with exertion, and their hair stuck to their foreheads with sweat. One or two had their shirts ripped. Another had blood trickling from a cut on his eye.

Detective Constable Ben Cooper could see his colleague, Todd Weenink, deep in the thick of it. Weenink had two PCs from the Tactical Support Unit close on either side of him, and there were more men coming in from behind to assist them. They looked exhausted, their expressions grim, but determined. They were struggling against the odds, fighting a battle of containment that they were constantly in danger of losing.

The students were charging forward in a solid mass, forcing the police to give ground under the onslaught. In the melee, close up, anything could be happening – a poke in the eye, a boot in the crutch, teeth sinking into an ear. The police had not been issued with riot shields or helmets today; there was no body armour, no snarling Alsatians or horses to keep the students at bay. There had been no authority given for the use of special weapons, no tear gas canisters held nervously in reserve.

In addition, the police had to face a ceaseless barrage of noise – chanted slogans, shouts of abuse and a constant stream of profanities from a hostile crowd.

Cooper pulled his hands out of his jeans pockets and turned his coat collar up to try to shut out the cacophony. If he could, he would have closed his eyes, too, to avoid seeing the slaughter, to stop himself from imagining the consequences if the police line collapsed. In another moment, the day could end in total humiliation for Derbyshire Constabulary E Division. And not a single arrest made so far.

‘What are we going to do, Sarge?’ he said.

Detective Sergeant Rennie was an old hand. He had seen it all before. He rubbed his jowls, pulled his anorak closer around his shoulders, and winced as a PC went down and was trampled underfoot.

‘Conduct a survey,’ he said. ‘We’ll send out a questionnaire.’

Cooper nodded. ‘I suppose so. But it’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘We’ll make sure there are lots of tick boxes to fill in.’

‘Even so . . .’

Rennie shrugged and sighed. ‘It’s all we can do, Ben. Otherwise, we just have to sit back and let it happen.’