‘There are no passing places. We don’t want to meet anyone coming the other way on these straight stretches, or someone would have to reverse a long way.’

Fry sighed. ‘I suppose that makes sense, of a kind.’

The place everyone referred to as a village was no more than a T-junction where the side road from Pity Wood met the B5012. There were farms either side of the road, the entrance to an old quarry, fenced off and blocked with limestone boulders. On the southwest corner of the junction, a stile provided access to a footpath that snaked off across the fields between the dry-stone walls, probably heading towards High Peak Trail, the old railway line to Buxton. The grass verge had been flattened and worn away here – the signs of an unofficial lay-by made by hikers leaving their cars. They’d be less willing to do that in December, the rutted mud making verges treacherous for parking on.

The main part of the village clung to the hillside just below its brow. But there were many far-flung farms, where a hard living had been scraped from sheep farming for centuries. Three or four farms clustering around a double bend formed the centre of Rakedale. There were more cattle sheds than houses, more trailer ramps and livestock gates than front doors. The only observer as they passed was a black-and-white calf peering from a pen in the corner of a yard. The calf watched them miserably, kicking at its straw.

There were no road markings here – no white lines or yellow lines, no chevrons or rumble strips. Even the edges of the road itself were unclear. At the top of the village, where they had to make a sharp right turn, the junction was pretty much indistinguishable. Every direction looked like a farm track.

Cooper parked in front of the village Methodist chapel and they all got out, pulling on their coats, sorting their interview forms into plastic wallets to keep them dry, and dividing the village up into three sectors. Fry looked at a giant puddle between the car and the road.

‘And now I suppose you’ll tell me that Derbyshire is disappearing under water because sea levels are rising.’

‘No, but parts of Lincolnshire are going to disappear,’ said Cooper. ‘Perhaps not in our lifetime, but –’

‘Oh, give it a rest.’

‘You brought it up.’

Fry walked off, and Murfin nudged Cooper as they watched her go. ‘I think you won that one, Ben.’

‘It’s not a competition, Gavin. People should be thinking about these things.’

Murfin pulled a couple of chocolate bars out of his pocket and handed one to Cooper.

‘Blimey. As long we can still grow food, what does it matter?’

House-to-house. It wasn’t always the most popular job on a major enquiry. Especially when it was raining.