Inside the outbuildings, someone had started chipping the old plaster off the walls. Layers of dust covered the floor, and the exposed stonework looked inexplicably damp.

‘If it was up to me, the whole thing would come down,’ said Dudzik. ‘Then we could start from scratch and do a proper job. But we have to retain the original features. Original features! Bits of old stone and rotten timbers. What’s the point? I ask you.’

Fry let him talk for a while longer. Then she thought of a question. ‘Why haven’t you dug up the old drains, did you say?’

Dudzik shrugged. ‘There’s no way of knowing where they are exactly. There are no records for these old places, no proper site maps, yes? And the drainage often goes off at odd angles, when it’s so old. It will be sections of clay pipe, you see – useless by now. Useless. Besides, there’s nothing in the new plans for that area. It’ll just be a bit of garden or a paddock, so what’s the point of us digging it up?’

‘And this area where Jamie Ward found the body – there wasn’t supposed to be a wall here at all?’

‘No, no. There was no wall here. It was a job I gave to Jamie, you know – to keep him out of the way.’

‘Can I have a look at the plans, please?’

‘Sure.’

Dudzik pulled a rolled-up plan out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

‘It looks as though this area was going to be left pretty well untouched,’ she said. ‘It’s shown as grass on the drawings.’

Dudzik shrugged. ‘I know. But what a waste. This is the perfect place for a nice patio. Some good paving, you know. A water feature maybe. We could have made it nice.’

‘That’s pretty much what Jamie said too.’

‘That boy. He’s not stupid – just not practical, you know.’

‘He would have noticed soon enough that no wall was being built, wouldn’t he?’

‘I guess so, Detective.’

Fry had been listening to his accent. She knew he was Polish, but it was only the sound of his vowels that gave him away. His command of idiom was very good, and he hadn’t faltered on the use of tenses, which was often a problem for nonnative speakers.

‘Your English is excellent, Mr Dudzik. How long have you been in this country?’