The PC smiled. ‘Thank you – it was seeing how he loved the job that inspired me.’

Grace smiled. ‘You’re a pretty useful football ref, too, I recall?’

‘Well, I don’t know about useful, sir, but I try.’

‘Good lad!’ Grace signed the log and handed the clipboard to Branson, saying glibly to the PC, ‘Excuse his scrawl, he’s barely literate!’

‘Yeah, yeah!’ Branson retorted. He picked up the pen and deliberately and painfully slowly wrote his name immaculately neatly. Handing the clipboard back, he said cheekily, ‘In case you can’t read my colleague’s, he’s Detective Superintendent Smudge.’

Conall Bartlett took it, uncertain whether to smile.

The two detectives ducked under the tape, strode the short distance to the inner cordon tape, ducked under that, too, then walked along the metal track that had been laid by the police Forensics Team. Its purpose was to cause minimum disturbance to the route the killer had likely taken to the deposition site.

It led a couple of hundred yards into the woods where there were two open-sided tents, one small and square, inside which was a generator running noisily and two tables. On one table stood a kettle, mugs, a jar of coffee, a box of tea and two open packets of biscuits. On the other were laid out several sealed and tagged evidence bags, each containing an item.

The larger tent was rectangular, brightly lit by jury-rigged overhead lights, over a shallow grave. Dotted around on the ground outside the tents were numbered yellow triangles, indicating where possible evidence had been found.

James Gartrell, the highly competent CSI photographer whom Grace knew well, busy recording the area on video, paused to nod a greeting. ‘Afternoon, boss.’ He was also in full protective clothing.

‘How are you doing, James?’

‘Fine, boss, thank you. Lorna and Simon are inside the tent.’ Then, obviously knowing Grace’s news, asked sympathetically, ‘And you, boss – I’m so sorry about—’

Grace silenced him with a grim smile and a raised hand, then approached and opened the larger tent. Inside, he saw the white-suited backs of two people examining the shallow grave. The POLSA, Sergeant Lorna Dennison-Wilkins, and the assistant forensic archaeologist, Simon Davy, stood at the edge, Lorna sipping from a steaming mug, Simon standing over the two search officers, watching them. Both turned immediately as they heard the footsteps.

‘Sir,’ the Sergeant said, addressing Grace. ‘I heard you were coming.’ Then she gave him a forlorn look. ‘I’m sorry about your news.’ She shot a smile at Branson by way of acknowledgement.

‘Thanks, I appreciate it, Lorna,’ Grace said. ‘So, what do we have?’ He walked over to the freshly excavated area. The two specialists – impossible to tell who without seeing their faces – were scraping the soil at the bottom with trowels, with the painstaking and back-breaking diligence of archaeologists on a dig, checking the freed, loose soil with their gloved fingers before discarding it over the top, onto a growing pile.

‘Well, sir, Simon has some early thoughts which might be helpful.’