‘Sod being selective,’ said Tailby. ‘Take everything. We’ll worry about being selective later.’

A few yards away, DI Hitchens manoeuvred to keep his senior officer within distance. Other officers ebbed and flowed awkwardly around them, like extras in a badly staged Gilbert and Sullivan opera, who had just realized that nobody had told them what to do with their hands.

‘The light’s failing fast,’ said Hitchens, gazing at the sky.

‘Well, thanks for that,’ snapped Tailby. ‘I thought I was going blind.’

The DCI strode over to the side of the stone circle and looked down into the disused quarry beyond it. There was a barbed wire fence, but it was too low to keep anybody out. On the other side could be seen the last few yards of an access road, which ended on the lip of the quarry. Diane Fry stretched her neck to see what Tailby was looking at. Someone had been fly-tipping from the roadway. She could just make out tyre marks, and a heap of bulging black bin liners, some yellow plastic sheeting and a roll of carpet that had been heaved off the edge. The rubbish lay scattered on the slope like the debris of a plane crash.

‘Find out where the entrance to that quarry is,’ said Tailby. ‘And somebody will have to go down there. We need to find the rest of the clothes. Top priority.’

Hitchens had to dodge as Tailby wheeled suddenly and strode back towards the stones, avoiding the lengths of blue tape twisted together between birch trees and metal stakes. In the centre of the circle, the pathologist, Mrs Van Doon, still crouched over the victim under makeshift lighting. Tailby’s face contorted. He seemed to find something outrageous and obscene in the posture of the body.

‘Where’s that tent?’ he called. ‘Get the tent over her before we have an audience.’

He turned his back and walked on a few yards from the circle, where a single stone stood on its own. DI Hitchens trailed after him at a safe distance.

‘There’s an inscription carved on this stone,’ announced Tailby, with the air of Moses coming down from the mountain.

‘Yes. It looks like a name, sir.’

‘We’ll need a photographer over here. I want that name deciphering.’

‘It’s well away from the path,’ said Hitchens. ‘We think the assailant probably brought his victim from the other direction.’

‘So?’

‘The inscription has probably been there for years.’

‘Do you know that? Are you familiar with these stones?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ever seen them before in your life?’

‘No, sir.’

Tailby turned. ‘No point asking you, Fry, is there?’