It was the shape of a human hand.

Detective Sergeant Diane Fry stepped out of her car on to the muddy ground, drew her coat tighter round her shoulders and wiped the rain from her face. All the activity seemed to be taking place on the other side of the track. Uniformed officers setting up cordons, SOCOs climbing into scene suits, a bunch of bystanders gaping like idiots. She looked around with a weary sigh. A week before Christmas, and wouldn’t you know it? A major enquiry in prospect, if she wasn’t mistaken.

Fry slammed the door of her Peugeot, her hands already wet and slipping on the handle. There was only one ray of hope. From the initial reports that had come in to Control, this air of activity might be misleading. Something quite different was going on here.

In fact, everyone was waiting with barely restrained anxiety for a verdict on the age of the body that had been unearthed. If it was recent, the entire division was in for a ruined holiday. If they were lucky, it could prove to be a historic burial, the remains of a medieval graveyard disturbed by the construction work. And then they could hand it over to the archaeologists and drive off home with a cheery wave and shouts of ‘Have a good Christmas.’

All right, that was probably too much to hope for. But even a decade or two on the bones would be good news. At least they could take their time making enquiries. Victims who’d been missing for ten or twenty years would wait a little while longer for their identity to be established.

Besides, what family wanted a knock on the door over Christmas and a police officer standing on the step to inform them that their missing loved one had been found in a shallow grave in some godforsaken spot at the back of beyond? That sort of thing could ruin Christmas for ever.

She called to a uniformed officer in a yellow high-vis jacket. ‘Is DC Murfin here somewhere, do you know?’

‘Yes, Sergeant. Shall I fetch him?’

‘Please.’

Yes, Christmas. In Fry’s experience, there were already far too many families who were unable to regard it as a time for gladness and joy. This time of year had a nasty tendency to bring back memories for people. Recollections of happier times, of opportunities lost, of friends and relatives who had passed on to celebrate Christmas in a better place.

No, the festive season wasn’t all about peace and goodwill, not these days. Anyone in the emergency services could tell you that. Christmas didn’t make much difference to the lives of all those poor, pathetic and dysfunctional people who cluttered up the police stations and courts from one month to the next.