When darkness descended totally, all he could see beyond the floodlights were the distant, isolated lights of scattered farmhouses. There were no streetlights out here, not even on the B road down in the valley. There was no upward glow from the lights of a town to reflect off the sky. There were no towns near enough. Soon, the shadows would have taken over the world. Or the whole of Rakedale, at least.

To the south of the farm, Cooper could just see Pity Wood itself, or what was left of it. Dark clumps of trees, their bare branches dripping with rain. And from the direction of the big shed, the only sound he could hear was the incessant scratch, scratch, scratch against the corrugated-iron sides.

As if Fry didn’t have enough on her plate, Ben Cooper was behaving oddly. Well, even more oddly than usual. She could see him stopping periodically, and sniffing. Sometimes he even crouched and sniffed close to the ground. Quietly, she came up behind him, realizing that he was totally absorbed in whatever he was concentrating on. When he stopped to squat on the ground again, she tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Hey, what are you supposed to be? General Custer’s Red Indian guide?’

Cooper almost overbalanced, and had to push a hand palm down in the mud to stop himself falling.

‘Oh, for – Diane, don’t do that.’

She found him a clean tissue in her pocket, noting that he’d been so taken by surprise that he didn’t even bother to correct her inappropriate use of the term ‘Red Indian’.

‘What’s with all the sniffing?’

‘There’s a strange smell in this area,’ said Cooper. ‘I thought at first it was just cat urine, but there’s more to it than that.’

‘It’s a farm,’ said Fry. ‘Farms have smells like dogs have fleas. Haven’t you noticed that before?’

‘Not a livestock kind of smell. It’s a chemical odour. Ammonia, but something else too.’

‘This must have been the machinery shed. There’d be diesel, lubricating oil. Damn it, there must have been fertilizer and herbicides, too. Disinfectant – all kinds of chemicals. What’s one whiff among friends?’

‘Can you actually smell it?’ asked Cooper.

‘No. But, then, I think I’m getting a cold.’ Fry turned her face up to the drizzle that had started while they were speaking. ‘And if I stand out here much longer, it’ll be pneumonia.’

Fry sent Cooper to see if the DI needed anything doing before he went off duty. She shook her head as she watched him go, despairing at her inability to understand him, even now.