‘Well, then they panicked, because they thought they’d be accused of murdering their brother. Their fingerprints would be on his body, his blood would be on their clothes. Raymond says they knew they wouldn’t have much chance if they told the true story to the police.’

‘So they buried their brother?’ said Fry.

‘Yes.’

‘On the principle of “out of sight, out of mind”, I suppose.’

‘Something like that.’

Fry glared at the traffic lights that had brought them to a halt near the crematorium.

‘But they didn’t bury him on the farm,’ she said.

‘Oh, no. Not on their own patch.’

‘You don’t shit on your own doorstep, do you? That’s a good rule.’

‘Besides, it would have been too much of a reminder,’ said Cooper. ‘Instead, they had to find somewhere remote, and safe from being dug up.’

‘Like a protected heritage site.’

‘Ideal.’

‘And yet it also had to be somewhere where there was already a lot of disturbed ground, where no one would notice a grave.’

‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘Those spoil heaps at Magpie Mine were perfect for them.’

‘Has Raymond said that’s where they buried the body?’

‘He’s given directions for the search team. They’re sending a human remains dog in.’

‘But, Ben, did nobody in Rakedale notice Alan was missing?’

‘Raymond says they made up a story about him going off to make his living some other way, because he couldn’t stand farming any more. Nobody questioned it at the time. Alan himself had said as much in the village. So it was accepted as the truth, whether anyone had any private doubts or not.’

‘Just another one of those beliefs without any substance in reality,’ said Fry. ‘If you accept one totally improbable thing, why not another? Especially if everyone else around you seems to take it as fact.’

‘Yes. I suspect everyone in Rakedale more or less forgot about Alan Sutton after a while.’

‘Except his brothers.’

‘Oh, the brothers never forgot,’ said Cooper. ‘They lived with his ghost. I think even Raymond felt his presence, and he wasn’t the superstitious one. What a nightmare.’

Cooper thought they probably couldn’t even begin to appreciate the depth of the nightmare at this distance. What went on inside the closed circles of families was often incomprehensible to outsiders.

‘The Sutton brothers were so closely bound together that they reacted against each other constantly. Raymond became more and more disapproving and censorious, and Derek’s behaviour became increasingly bizarre and superstitious.’

‘Was Derek being deliberately provocative?’

‘I’m sure there must have been an element of that, on both sides. And once they were trapped in the cycle, it was bound to escalate.’

Cooper was steering the Toyota round the Chesterfield bypass, using the twisted spire of the parish church as a landmark while he headed for the A619.