‘Did you actually see her?’ he said.

Stride looked dreamy again. But if the painkillers were wearing off, he couldn’t blame the medication for his spiritual absence.

‘Did you?’ said Cooper. ‘Did you see her? Jenny Weston?’

But Stride didn’t answer.

‘Or was it the other woman you saw?’ said Cooper. ‘The one with the scars on her face?’

Finally, Stride stirred. ‘No, the first one. Jenny.’

‘You won’t be going very far, will you?’ said Cooper. ‘We’ll want a statement from you.’

‘I’ve already given one. I never saw them properly – it was too dark.’

‘Not about that, Simon. About the murder of Jenny Weston.’

Stride could be sharp enough when he wanted to be. Yet his eyes were closing, and he looked about to drift off to whatever place it was he went to.

‘I don’t know who killed her,’ said Stride. ‘There’s no point in asking me.’

‘Maybe not. But it was you that found the body first, at least,’ said Cooper. ‘Nobody else would have arranged her like that, in the stone circle. I have to tell you that Jenny was no virgin, Simon. And it wasn’t the Fiddler who made her dance. It was you.’

Stride closed his eyes tightly. His face was a ghastly white now, as pale as the underside of one of those obscene fungi that never saw the light.

‘But I don’t believe you killed her either,’ said Cooper. ‘Not you or Cal. Not in a million years. It was you that made Jenny dance, Simon. But you and I both know that it’s someone else who has been playing the tune.’

Diane Fry watched Todd Weenink make his way round the edge of the building, looking for their car. DI Hitchens rolled down the window to speak to him.

‘There’s not much we can do,’ said Hitchens, ‘if the women don’t seem to be committing any offence. They could just be here for the auction, like anybody else. They do let spectators in, apparently.’

‘But they’re not even trying to go inside,’ said Weenink. ‘The town centre PC has spoken to them, but they say they’re just looking at the animals.’

Fry leaned across. ‘What do you think their intentions are, sir?’

‘No idea,’ said Hitchens. ‘All we can do is keep an eye on them.’

‘They’re going to be in the way,’ said Weenink. ‘Do you want to call it off?’

‘Oh no,’ said Hitchens. ‘We can’t do that. We need an arrest.’

‘There is one thing,’ said Weenink. He looked at Diane Fry in the passenger seat. ‘One of the women is known to us.’

‘You recognized her?’

Fry felt a cold sensation. There was an awful inevitability about what Weenink was going to say. He was looking at her when he spoke again, not at the DI.