Fairfax was holding up well now, trundling along at his own speed. Barlow and Hobbes followed a few steps behind. The downpour stopped after a few minutes, turning the trees into a kind of spectral orchestra made of the sound of dripping water, the creak and crackle of the twigs finding their rightful patterns. The evening birds had started up again with a flurry. The earth was dark and rich.

Then they came upon the sight.

The thing was half buried in the dirt, partially covered with roots and tendrils. Some strange-looking fungi had taken root in the flesh. It was this that gave off the terrible smell, for the body had been there for a time, some weeks, that was obvious.

‘It’s just a dog,’ Barlow said.

Hobbes nodded.

Fairfax mumbled, ‘I told you, I told you so.’

‘It’s a fuckin’ dog.’ Barlow hardly ever swore but he looked well pissed off. He turned his face from the thrust of the wind.

Hobbes murmured, ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘I told you, right? Another body.’

‘Yeah, you did. Brilliant, Tommy.’

‘It’s probably significant, right? It probably ties in with … you know … the murder case, the … erm, what is he called? The victim? Oh, shit, my feet are soaked.’

Hobbes turned to Barlow. ‘Take him away, will you? Get him out of my sight.’

But Fairfax had other ideas. He pushed the constable’s hands away, suddenly angry. ‘Watch it, kid. I’m not under orders, right, you see that?’

And he took off, moving further along the pathway, deeper into the woods. Hobbes watched him go – a half-broken figure stumbling to avoid the branches that reached down to entangle him. The sound of twigs cracking. And Fairfax swearing continuously, his voice growing quieter with every step. Until, at last, the woods were silent.

Barlow banged his arms against his sides to keep warm, but Hobbes didn’t move, not yet. He bent down and examined the dead animal. Something large, an Alsatian or a golden retriever, maybe. Patches of fur still visible here and there. He stared at the fungi, the cream caps with a swirl of black shapes. And that smell …

How long had the dog been there?

How had it died? An accident, old age? Or was it killed?

Why hadn’t it decomposed completely?

He carried the image of the creature with him, all the way back to his car, back home to the flat, and all the way through the late-night television shows, through the taste of the cigarettes that he smoked one after another, hoping to get the stench of death out of his mind. Even in bed, even asleep or half asleep, the image plagued him. The sight of it merged with the phrase Rosamund Kepple had used.

I am the night flesh.

And right on the edge of waking up in the morning, on the edge of his final dream, he remembered where he’d seen the dress, the flowered material, the tear in the cloth and the blood, so long ago, in the fog, the fog on the streets …