Good luck to them. But if she found them putting their crazy ideas into practice, she’d be obliged to lock them up. Prison or high-security psychiatric hospital, she didn’t really mind. So long as colleagues like Ben Cooper didn’t get in her way with some well-meaning rubbish about cultural identity.

But here, in Edendale, was a genuine hand of glory.

‘The only other one that we know of is in the museum at Whitby,’ said the attendant.

‘Obtaining a human hand under the proper circumstances could prove to be quite difficult in this day and age,’ said Fry.

‘I expect so. But …’

‘What?’

‘Well, there are ways and means, aren’t there? You can find people willing to do anything, for the right price.’

DCI Kessen was standing near the back of the CID room when Fry returned. Before she could get her coat off, his voice stopped her.

‘Ah, DS Fry. Do we have any possibilities yet from the missing persons reports?’

Not knowing what else to do, Fry looked down at her desk. A misper report sat right there, left for her by someone while she was out.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Let’s have it, DS Fry.’

Fry picked up the report and read it for the first time. ‘This is a local woman who was reported missing four years ago. She’s five foot seven, twenty-four years old, reddish hair.’

‘Red hair? Is that a match?’

‘The older body is missing a head.’

‘So it is.’

‘But it’s the closest we’ve got at the moment, sir.’

‘Who made the report?’ asked Kessen.

‘A sister.’

‘Is it possible she would still have some of the missing woman’s possessions?’

‘Something that would retain a print, you mean?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Fry.

‘Well, ask her.’

Fry sat down and picked up the phone.

‘Hold on, we have a miracle,’ said Hitchens. ‘The mobile unit in Rakedale has had success. A member of the public came in with some information. We’ve even got a name. Jack Elder.’

Fry put the phone down again. ‘Shall we go and pick him up?’ she said eagerly.

‘If you like. He lives in a bungalow on Field Lane, Rakedale. But word is that he’s been seen going into the village pub, and he hasn’t come out yet.’

‘Who’s the informant, sir?’

‘Mr Alex Brindley, of Shaw Farm.’

Cooper looked at Fry as they went out. ‘Mr Brindley? Is he a reliable witness?’

‘Yes. Well, I believed him – which is more than I can say for anyone else I’ve spoken to in Rakedale.’