He came to a halt once more, shook his head and mumbled something.

‘Do you need anything, sir?’

Hobbes didn’t answer the constable straight away. And then he looked up and wiped the rain from his face and eyes. He frowned. ‘The whole area should’ve been covered. It’s a fuckin’ mess!’

Barlow was perplexed by the inspector’s tone of voice.

‘Do you have any idea what happened here, Constable?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, we had to get to the body. We had to walk over the ground. There was no way of knowing—’

‘Not that! Not that, for God’s sake. I mean, do you know what happened here? Read the signs.’

Barlow tried. He looked at the ground, but the earth was churned up with boot prints, one over the other in a chaotic pattern. ‘I think—’

‘Come on, I need a second pair of eyes.’

Barlow stood up straight. ‘The body wasn’t dragged here.’

‘Right. Good. There are no drag marks. None of the plants anywhere around are broken or bent over. And there’s no trail along the ground.’

‘So the killing took place where the body lies?’

Hobbes nodded. ‘They met here. And the struggle, or whatever it was, took place right here.’ He looked at the tent. It was bright yellow, a stark intrusion into this world of muted colours.

‘Right then. I’ll take it from here.’

Barlow nodded and moved back through the trees. Hobbes collected his thoughts, then slipped inside the tent.

The atmosphere changed. The air was stale and hot. Sweat broke out on the inspector’s brow and neck immediately. The canvas billowed and snapped in the wind, like a yacht’s sail. He could smell rubber, damp, mildew. And plant life roused by the night’s rain. But no decomp. That was something. Recent, then.

Hobbes waited on the threshold.

The body lay on the ground, with its own negative energy, drawing every last shred of hope and goodness from the small enclosed space.

DS Latimer was there, alongside a couple of crime-scene officers.

He asked simply, ‘Time?’

‘The doctor said around eight o’clock.’ Latimer frowned. ‘So he’d been here for about an hour, that’s all, before discovery. Rigor hasn’t yet set in.’

Hobbes’s face showed no reaction.

‘Anything been touched?’

‘We’ve kept it clean. As clean as we can, given the circumstances.’

‘Right.’ Hobbes stepped to the side. ‘Meg, you know what I need.’

She nodded and spoke to the forensics team. There was no argument, no nasty looks or gestures: they were used to, or had heard of, Hobbes’s mannerisms by now. The three people filed out through the tent’s opening.

The inspector was alone.

Alone with the body.

This was how he worked best. He knew it was unconventional – everything was teamwork, teamwork, teamwork these days. But he had to do it this way. By some intuitive process, he could feel the murderer’s intent in the air, just waiting to be grasped. By Christ, but he wished he’d got here earlier, the first on scene. He hated all the clutter: the doctor and the whole crew and the tramping feet and the noise and the endless speculations. His ideal, he often thought, would be to arrive five to ten minutes after the perpetrator had fled the scene. That would be so perfect. Everything untouched, pristine. He needed time to get close, to find the thing that mattered, the one thing.