He checks the address on his phone. He’s looking for a vicarage, but the only buildings he can see other than the church itself are a row of four ’80s-built semidetached houses that fail to meet the description he has of a dilapidated Victorian mansion. But the third house sports a small brass plaque: THE VICARAGE. There are no signs of activity. No crime scene.

He has a sudden feeling someone is watching him and looks up to see an elderly man standing in the churchyard. The man stares for a moment and then turns away, disappearing behind the churchyard wall. Tyler climbs the grassy bank, and the man comes back into view. He’s raking up cut grass from between the headstones, a half-smoked roll-up hanging from his bottom lip. Behind him a metal cage crackles with burning garden waste.

When the man speaks, he does so without looking up. “You want the Old Vicarage. Follow the road round, and it’s the first gate you come to on the left.” He gestures over his shoulder with a grubby thumb, and now Tyler sees the strobe of blue emergency lights coming from somewhere behind the church. The man draws deeply on the tab end, filling his lungs before exhaling slowly. Now that he’s closer, the man doesn’t look as old as he’d first thought. Late fifties, perhaps.

“Thank you, Mr. . . . ?”

“Wentworth. Joe.” He makes a show of pulling some weeds from between the stones in the wall. He fails to make eye contact. “Police, is it?”

“DS Tyler.” He shows the man his warrant card and tries his best at a disarming smile. He isn’t very good at them.

“Found him, then.” It’s not quite a question. Wentworth throws the last of his grass onto the smoking heap, the burning stub still clasped tightly between puckered lips.

“You knew Mr. Cartwright?”

“Aye,” Wentworth growls. “Not many as don’t know each other in this place.”

Tyler suppresses a smile and wonders if Joe Wentworth has ever heard the word stereotype. Perhaps he doesn’t hide it well enough, though, because suddenly Wentworth is gathering together tools and dropping them one by one into his wheelbarrow with a reverberating clang.

“I’ll be getting on then.” He raises the handles on his barrow and starts toward the church. Tyler considers calling him back, questioning him further, but decides to let him go. Maybe he’s got something he wants to say, or maybe he’s just a nosy old local. Either way, he’ll be easy enough to find later.