‘My name is Sid Halley,’ I shouted at all the riders going by, some of whom may have been licensed jockeys with agents. ‘Do any of you know someone called Anton Valance? Tell him I want to speak to him about the death of Gary Bremner.’

If that didn’t bring him out into the open, nothing would.

However, the first person to arrive was not Mr Valance but a uniformed policeman in a blue-and-yellow-checked patrol car, which screeched to a halt right in front of me.

‘Are you Mr Sid Halley?’ the policeman asked up to my lofted position through his open window.

‘Indeed I am.’

‘Then please come down off there. That’s a protected historic monument, not a soapbox.’

Did this policeman not know that, back in the Middle Ages, crosses such as this one were used for preaching and making public proclamations, as well as for defining a space of personal sanctuary? Was I not just carrying on a centuries-old tradition, protected from persecution and the law?

However, I decided against arguing the point with this particular officer of the law, and so I came down off the steps.

‘Now get in my car,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘My guv’nor wants to speak to you.’

‘Then tell him to come here.’

The policeman looked at me. ‘Are you trying to get yourself arrested for causing damage to listed property?’

I got into his car.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

He didn’t answer, but he soon turned into a driveway. To my right I could see a fire engine with several yellow-helmeted firefighters still moving about in the burned-out remains of a stable yard. We drove past the ugly scene and pulled up some fifty yards farther on, in front of what I could only imagine was Gary Bremner’s house.

‘Round the back,’ the policeman said, climbing out.

I followed him down the side of the building and into the rear garden.

The television report had said Gary’s body had been found in the undergrowth at the bottom of his garden, but the whole space was overgrown, with the grass looking like it hadn’t been cut for many years, probably since his wife and kids departed.

It was strikingly different to the lawns on either side of the driveway at the front, which were immaculate. Clearly, prospective horse owners weren’t shown round to this part of the estate.

Standing almost knee-deep among the stinging nettles and dandelions were two men engrossed in conversation. One was wearing a head-to-toe white forensic suit, while the other was in black trousers and a blue waterproof jacket. Beyond them in the far left-hand corner was the blue tent I’d seen on the news.

‘Wait here,’ said the policeman who’d collected me.

I waited while he went to speak to the others and, presently, the man in the blue jacket came over to me.