Jamie swallowed a spurt of bile that hit the back of his throat. He’d been trailing backwards and forwards over this same patch of earth for days now. Shifting stacks of breeze block for the brickies, unloading bags of sand from the lorry, stopping for a quick fag behind the wall. Damn it, his boot prints were all over the place. Anyone who cared to look would see the pattern of his rubber soles, pressed deep in the mud. His eyes followed the criss-crossing trails he’d left, curving in long arcs that stretched twenty yards or more. His tracks were so numerous and extensive that they were probably visible from space like the Great Wall of China, place-marked on Google Earth. They were so distinct that they might as well be the swirls of his fingerprints. Jamie Ward’s signature on the job, perfectly clear and complete.

Soon, people would be talking about him and pointing at him. Before much longer, he’d be answering questions, endless questions, re-living over and over the moment he was trying to forget. He’d seen the TV cop shows, and he knew they never let you alone once they had you in one of their little interview rooms.

He could hear two sirens now, their yelp and wail teasing playfully against each other, fading and getting louder as the cars took one of the bends in Rakedale, dipping behind stone walls and clumps of trees until they reached the top of the hill and turned into the farm.

Jamie thought back to the morning he’d got out of the van, stretched his legs and stepped on to Pity Wood Farm for the first time. It was strange to think there had been grass growing here when the crew arrived on site. Now the whole gateway was churned up, and the soil either side was bare and exposed. In one corner, a wheel rut from a reversing truck had sliced through his boot prints.

He didn’t remember noticing anything unusual that first time. Well, maybe there had been a slight difference in the level of the ground just here, a low bump that was only noticeable if you happened to be pushing a wheelbarrow load of sand over it. And perhaps the grass had been a bit greener, too – only a tiny bit, if you looked closely. Perhaps the blades had gleamed with faintly unnatural health in the winter sunlight. He wouldn’t have looked twice at the time, and he’d never made anything of it. No one would have done.