‘Perhaps he didn’t know it was going to be developed,’ said Cooper.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’m thinking about all the vehicles and equipment that were left behind. Apart from the livestock, nothing seems to have been sold off at all – not even the furniture in the house. I wonder if Raymond Sutton was under the impression that the farm was being sold as a going concern.’

‘Sold to another farmer, you mean?’

Cooper nodded. ‘If Mr Sutton thought Pity Wood was going to continue as a dairy farm, he might not have worried about the bodies. Farmers have more to keep them occupied than building patios, especially if they’re starting a new herd from scratch.’

‘Did you ever speak to the auctioneers?’

‘No, I never got round to it. It didn’t seem all that important.’

‘Perhaps you’d better do it now,’ said Fry.

‘OK, I will.’ Cooper turned. ‘You talked to the new owner, didn’t you? Goodwin, is that the name?’

‘Yes, I spoke to him on the phone. Why?’

‘Did he seem like someone who’d make a convincing dairy farmer?’

Fry thought for a moment. ‘Not to me, he didn’t. I’d say he sounded more like a moderately successful provincial solicitor. You know – divorces and boundary disputes, that sort of lawyer. Steady business, but nothing that demands too much in the way of brains.’

‘And he lives in Manchester somewhere?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mmm. Dropping out of the rat race, maybe?’

‘Downshifting, they call it.’

‘I suppose that’s pretty much what you did, Diane. Moving from the big city into the country. It was a bit of a leap, wasn’t it?’

Mrs van Doon had the first body on the table in the mortuary. When Fry entered, suited and masked, the pathologist was trying to separate the skin from the mummified hand, easing it off the desiccated fingers like a glove. She would be hoping that someone could get usable fingerprints from it once it was clear of the corpse.

‘Can you estimate a time of death yet?’ asked Fry.

‘Ooh, time of death. That’s a favourite question, isn’t it? Well, by far the best indications of time of death are rigor mortis and body temperature. Anybody want to guess why those aren’t helpful in this case?’

Fry looked at the remains on the table, was about to speak, then realized the pathologist was probably making a joke.

‘That’s right. Because they’re both useless once you get past about thirty-six hours. Here, we’re well past that by a factor, of … oh, I’d say about three hundred or so. The only possibility you’re left with in this case is finding some evidence of the last time your victim was seen, or the last time anyone had contact with her.’

‘A factor of three hundred would make it about a year,’ pointed out Fry.