The clouds had closed down on the horizon and settled on the high tops to the north, where visibility would be pretty well zero, so close that you would be lucky to get a glimpse of your own boots in the heather. Cooper held the fungus gingerly towards Fry. She barely glanced at it, as if used to his peculiarities now. But she wrinkled her nose and turned her face away. Then he threw the fungus into the heather and wiped his fingers on a tissue. He was right – her sense of smell was perfectly good enough to detect cigarette smoke.

‘Have you heard of Eden Valley Enquiries?’ he said.

‘A firm of second-rate enquiry agents? Divorces and process-serving, that sort of thing. I think they have an office in one of those small business centres on Meadow Road.’

‘That’s right. Discreet confidential enquiries. No questions asked. I rang them the other day.’

‘Yeah? Looking for a new job, are you? Thinking of joining the private detective business?’

Cooper shook his head. ‘No. I was thinking of trying to sell them some soffits.’

Fry stared at him. ‘Ben, have you completely flipped?’

‘It was something we found at Maggie Crew’s place. It had the name “Eve” and a phone number. We thought it was some friend of hers. Only it wasn’t Eve, a person; it was EVE, in capitals. It stands for Eden Valley Enquiries.’

‘Yes? Is there a point?’

‘Well, there were some other details, a sort of journal.’

They had almost reached the Nine Virgins. The tape had gone now, and the public had been allowed back into the stone circle. Someone had laid a bunch of flowers against the base of one of the stones, where Jenny Weston had died.

Cooper took his notebook from his pocket. ‘Do you want to hear it?’ he said.

‘If it will make you feel better.’

‘It says: “Left place of residence in Grosvenor Avenue 21.10, travelled by car to Sheffield. Parked in multistorey car park in The Moor and proceeded on foot to railway arches near junction of Shrewsbury Road and Dixon Street.’ Cooper paused. ‘There’s a lot more. Do you want to hear it?’

‘No.’

‘It goes into quite some detail, on two separate occasions. And it ends with an unfortunate incident involving a confrontation with one of their operatives.’

‘So Maggie had me followed.’

‘The name of the subject isn’t actually mentioned,’ Cooper pointed out.

‘But why would she do that?’

Automatically, Cooper counted the stones. Some legends said that you could never count the Virgins, because they always moved before you got to the last one. But today there were definitely nine. Nine, plus the stone that stood away from the rest, on its own. The Fiddler.