‘They could be circus trapeze artists, for all I care, Cooper. Have we asked them about animal sacrifices?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then ask them. And find this Martin Stafford and the girl, Ros Daniels. We ought to be able to find at least one of them, shouldn’t we? Is there anything else? And don’t make it anything too exciting. I’ve had enough for today.’

‘Well,’ said Hitchens, as if suddenly noticing an important item that everyone had forgotten, ‘there is the phallus farm.’

‘What kind of farm?’ said Jepson.

‘Well, I don’t mean Warren Leach’s kind of farm. There are no EU subsidies for this particular crop . . .’

Warren Leach was waiting for the milk tanker. It was one of the few routines that still held his day together. Bringing the cows in, milking, waiting for the tanker. The morning’s yield was taken for Hartington Stilton, the local cheese made at the dairy in Dovedale. It was something most farmers were proud of, that their milk was going for Stilton. It was like still being part of the traditional dairy industry of the dales, not an anonymous unit of production for some huge commercial organization. Leach had once been proud of it himself, and had boasted about the quality of his milk. Now he found he couldn’t care less. He would have been just as happy to pour the stuff down the drain or into the nearest ditch.

The lad who normally came to help him had not turned up yesterday or today, so Leach had done everything himself. Gary was one of the Dawsons, from over the moor at Pilhough. The Dawsons weren’t up to much, but at least they were farming folk. But there had been a blazing row on Sunday afternoon, when Leach had lost his temper and sworn at the lad and accused him of being idle. Gary had threatened he would never come again, and it looked as though he never would.

In a way, Leach preferred it; he preferred to be left on his own, to have so much to do that it left no time for thinking. Yet it only lasted for a while, only until after the tanker had gone and the rest of the jobs held no urgency. Then, when there were no cows bellowing for attention, no tanker driver sounding his horn in the lane, when his sons had gone off to school in Cargreave on the bus – then he found the rest of the day stretched before him endlessly.