‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s not exactly an exact science. Put them at crossroads and places that look like,’ I hate making stuff up as I go along, ‘gateways,’ I said. ‘Transitional points between one place and another.’

‘Boundary points,’ said Stan. ‘Got you.’

Dominic had brought two rolls of blue and white police tape to wrap around the detectors – the better to deter tampering.

‘You star,’ I said, after he’d explained. ‘Do you think it will work?’

‘With the walkers and tourists,’ he said. ‘But the local buggers will have it away with anything.’ He glared at Stan, who gave him a bland look.

We divided up the detectors, the bulk going in the trailer, and me and Beverly watched Stan rattle off on the quad with Dominic riding pillion behind her.

‘I notice we have to carry ours,’ said Beverley. We each had a courier bag for our share of the detectors. With the strap across our shoulders the weight was even but they banged against our hips when we walked.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But it’s downhill, isn’t it?’

This time, instead of blowing the shit out of various fences, we followed the official right of way, making sure to stay on the path, close gates behind us and prevent our hypothetical dog from chasing the livestock.

We crossed over into a meadow where the long grass was overrun with clusters of yellow flowers.

‘Buttercup,’ said Beverley. ‘It’s poisonous, so cows and sheep won’t graze here – they must be keeping this field for hay.’

Further on we reached the wire fence that marked the edge of the woods and the drop down to Pokehouse Wood and the River Lugg. We found the stile that I’d last seen from the other side when I’d spotted the blood-stained strip of cloth the week before. There was still police tape marking the forensic search around where the cloth had hung on the barbed-wire fence.

Beverley clonked her bag pointedly at my feet and so I took the first detector from hers. Then it was a simple matter to wire it to the base of one of the stile’s posts and wrap some police tape around it a few times. I unshipped my tablet and checked that the detector had some bars and, satisfied it could get a signal out, I noted its position using the GPS co-ordinates app on my good phone.

‘Done,’ I said.

‘You just brought me along to help carry these,’ said Beverley and shook her bag at me.

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I was hoping you’d tell me about the landscape – you being a proper expert and everything.’

Beverley looked around. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Stuff.’