Murfin had been right about Jamie Ward. He was younger than any of the other men she’d seen standing around the site, and he had an entirely different look about him. His hair was streaked blond, and was gelled up at the front – hardly the typical builder’s style. But he was a well-built lad, six feet tall at least, a good build for a rugby player. His hands were powerful and broad, just as suitable for hard physical work as for playing rugby.

‘I’m studying Microbiology at Sheffield University,’ said Jamie when she asked him. ‘But I need to find work whenever I can, you know – to get some dosh.’

‘You work as a builder’s labourer? That’s a bit of an unusual vacation job for a student,’ suggested Fry.

Jamie shrugged. ‘It suits me. It beats working in McDonald’s, anyway. I like to be outside in the open air, doing a bit of physical work. I’d go mad otherwise. I don’t have any skills or training, but I can use a spade and push a wheelbarrow about.’

‘And carry a hod full of bricks?’

‘We’re not allowed to use hods any more,’ said Jamie. ‘Health and Safety – you could do your back in, or drop bricks on someone’s head.’

‘Really?’

He nodded. ‘Besides, we’re not using bricks on this site. It’s going to be entirely stone on the outside, to match the original walls. Breeze block on the inside, of course.’ Jamie wiped off a few inches of condensation and looked at the figures moving about in the rain. ‘Funny, really, when there’s all this clay lying about. But stone is much more fashionable. That’s what the owner wants.’

Fry saw him relaxing a little, now that he had managed to get off the painful subject of the body he’d found.

‘So you like to be outside in the open air?’ she asked, thinking that Jamie Ward reminded her a little of Ben Cooper. ‘Are you from a farming family, by any chance?’

‘Well, I used to help my grandfather around his place when I was a teenager. Just at weekends and during the school holidays. He doesn’t have the farm any more, though – Granddad sold up when it stopped making money.’

‘Sensible man.’

‘Right. Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my life doing the job that Granddad did. He was at it twenty-four seven. There was no let-up from looking after the animals. Livestock farming is for losers, don’t you think? Anyone with any sense is getting out as fast as they can.’

They both sat for a moment peering through the patch of cleared glass at the buildings of Pity Wood Farm, like divers examining a deep sea wreck.

‘I mean,’ said Jamie, ‘look at this place, for example.’

‘You’re right there.’