Lee does as he’s told. Where they stop there is lots of bracken, great clamouring mounds of it. This is a plant Lee can name, not that he likes it much. It seems to him somehow cheap, the bottom-feeder of the woods. Still holding the knife aloft, Kemp uses his free hand to rummage in his bag. But instead of a bandage he fishes out a roll of gaffer tape.

‘Oh charming, Darren. Use that on Maggot, did you?’

‘Just take the tape,’ Kemp says coolly. ‘Peel some off.’

It makes an awful unsticking sound as it comes off the roll, and Lee is chastened to see blood on his hands and on the tape. His blood. He looks at it, dazed. At the same time, Kemp, who has clamped the knife in his teeth to go hands-free, swiftly binds his wrists, going around double with the roll. Lee, caught off-guard, struggles, but Kemp is strong.

‘Come on, Darren! You don’t need to do this.’

‘They weren’t supposed to find him,’ Kemp is saying, as if continuing an argument. ‘He was meant to decompose.’

‘It’s Epping Forest, not the wilds of the Amazon! You’ve got dog walkers. Mountain bikers. For Christ’s sake, you’ve got doggers.’

Lee sees Kemp’s surprise and it makes him want to laugh. Mustn’t do that, he thinks. Mustn’t laugh. Lee is under no illusions now. What happened to Maggot was no joke. As well as making the front page of the tabloids, the death was on the TV news. Lee saw the scene at Hollow Ponds one night while idly flicking channels. Police lights flickered on the leaves, turning them Ninja Turtle green. It was funny (he thought then) how young officers looked these days; the constables he saw at court had the faces of babies. They were only children, really. It was extraordinary.

‘Listen to me,’ he tries again, turning to eyeball Kemp. He will debase himself if he has to. He will grovel. ‘I don’t have to say anything about what you said back there.’ Beg, borrow, steal, or lie. He is not too proud.

‘You’re lying. Or else you were lying to me before. Which is it, Prescott? Your duty, you said it was. That’s a way of putting it, isn’t it? A way of saying you’re going to dob.’ The childishness of the word ‘dob’ cuts against his tough-guy act. ‘Out of the car,’ he says. ‘No, wait.’ He eyes Lee’s legs.

‘If you tape my ankles, Darren, you’ll have to carry me,’ he points out. ‘There’s only one of you, remember. You’re on your own this time.’

So Kemp tapes his mouth instead, as Lee thrashes about. He feels the tightness on his mouth, the puckering of the tape.