‘What sort of cigarettes do you smoke?’ DCI Tailby asked the Ranger in the interview room.

‘I don’t,’ said Owen.

‘Just a crafty one now and then, is it? Maybe you’re not supposed to smoke in the briefing centre?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Really? Do you know your jacket smells of smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Well, it does.’

Owen looked pained. ‘I don’t smoke.’

‘We know about your record, Owen,’ said Tailby. ‘You’ve got a bit of a temper, haven’t you? You take it out on women sometimes. No doubt cigarettes help you to keep calm.’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Which of your colleagues smoke? The other Rangers?’

‘None that I know of. They like to stay fit. It’s no good being short of breath if you have to walk up hills.’

‘What about visitors? Do you let them smoke in the centre?’

‘No, it’s a no-smoking zone.’

Tailby let the tapes run for a few seconds and glanced at Diane Fry across the table.

‘So how do you explain the cigarette ash in the bin in your office?’ she said.

Owen looked baffled. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I mean the waste-paper bin.’

‘I’ve still no idea.’

‘Do you recognize this rucksack?’ Tailby produced the item in a sealed plastic bag. It was a blue Berghaus with green webbing shoulder straps.

‘Yes, it’s one of mine,’ said Owen.

‘This rucksack was recovered from the briefing centre. Can you explain the ash and the cigarette end we found at the bottom of it?’

Tailby saw the Ranger hesitate. The DCI kept his face composed, careful not to make the Ranger aware of the importance of the question. He set the reaction aside to come back to later.

‘No, I can’t,’ said Owen.

‘As well as the waste-paper bin, and the rucksack, our forensics people found cigarette ends at the scene of Jenny Weston’s murder. All the same make of cigarettes. That’s a lot of evidence of smoking, Mr Fox. For someone who doesn’t smoke.’

Owen shook his head. ‘I can’t help you.’

‘I suppose,’ said Tailby, after a pause, ‘there must be a lot of stress in your job now and then.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Is there anything that’s stressed you out particularly that you can think of?’

Owen seemed to turn inwards, his eyes becoming distant. ‘You mean like Cargreave Festival Day,’ he said. ‘Do you know about that? I think about Festival Day all the time.’

‘Tell us,’ said Tailby.

‘It was in all the papers. Pages and pages of it.’

‘Tell us anyway.’

Owen stroked his beard nervously. He looked like a man who ought to be pale and afraid of the light. And perhaps he would have been, too, if it weren’t for the job; it kept him out of doors, up on the hills, exposed to the weather. For most of the time.