They mounted a rise and a dim rectangular blackness showed against a hillside that must be white with frost. ‘Here we are,’ Markins said. ‘There’s a wire fence, sir. No barbs.’ The wire clanged as they climbed through. The flashlight played on frozen cart tracks.

‘There’s no light in the annexe,’ Alleyn said.

‘Shall we call out, sir?’

‘No. If he was about he’d have heard us. We don’t want the men roused up. Is this where the branch track goes down to the shearing-shed? Yes, there it goes. Downhill. Wait a moment.”

Markins turned quickly, flashing his light on Alleyn, who stood facing towards the shearing-shed. ‘Give me the torch, Markins, will you?’

He reached out his hand, took the torch, and flashed it down the branch track. Points of frost glittered like tinsel. The circle of light moved on and came to rest on a sprawling mound.

‘My God!’ Markins said loudly. ‘What’s he bin and done to ’imself?’

‘Keep off the track.’ Alleyn stepped on the frozen turf beside it and moved quickly down towards the wool-shed. The torchlight now showed him the grey shepherd’s plaid of his own overcoat with Fabian’s legs, spreadeagled, sticking out from under the skirts, Fabian’s head, rumpled and pressed face downwards in a frozen rut, and his arms stretched out beyond it as if they had been raised to shield it as he fell.

Alleyn knelt beside him, giving the torch to Markins.

Fabian’s hair grew thick over the base of his head, which, like the nape of his thin and delicately grooved neck, looked boyish and vulnerable. Alleyn parted the hair delicately.

Behind him, holding the torch very steadily, Markins whispered a thin stream of blasphemy.

‘A downward blow,’ said Alleyn. He thrust one hand swiftly under the hidden face, raised the head, and with the other hand, like a macabre conjurer, pulled out of Fabian’s mouth a gaily coloured silk handkerchief.

‘He’s not—?’

‘No, no, of course not.’ Alleyn’s hands were busy. ‘But we must get him out of this damnable cold. It’s not more than twelve yards to the wool-shed. There are no other injuries, I fancy. Think we can do it? We mustn’t go falling about with him.’

‘OK, OK.’

‘Steady then. I’ll get that sacking door opened first.’

When they lifted him, Fabian’s breathing was thick and stertorous. Little jets of vapour came from his mouth. When they reached the open door and Alleyn lifted his shoulders to the level of the raised floor, he groaned deeply.

‘Gently, gently,’ Alleyn said. ‘That’s the way, Markins. Good. I’ve got his head. Slide him in. The floor’s like glass. Now, drop the door and I’ll get some of those bales.’

The light darted about the wool-shed, on the press, the packed bales, and the heap of empty ones. They bedded Fabian down in strong-smelling sacking.