THE FOLLOWING MORNING DAWNED EVERY BIT AS MILD and clear as the previous one, and this time Banks was alone in his cottage. He didn’t bother with breakfast but poured a travel mug of coffee to go and set off for Eastvale. His sleep had been fitful but far more refreshing than the night before. He had spoken briefly with Zelda on the phone the previous evening when he had got back from Leeds. She had telephoned him to thank him for his hospitality and company, and let him know that she had had a good time and not to worry, she would be OK now.

When Banks got to the station, he discovered that Annie and Gerry were down at the park at the bottom of Elmet Hill—or the top of Hollyfield Lane, depending on your perspective. When he phoned Annie’s mobile, she told him the CSIs thought they had found something interesting. Banks set off immediately.

The little park was marked off by lines of police tape for the second day of searching. Perhaps it should have been done before, Banks worried, but the evidence linking Samir to the Stokes house, and Frankie’s statement that the boy had run toward the park, were what had clinched the matter.

Uniformed officers stood guard at regular intervals to keep away curious onlookers and, more to the point, aggressive journalists. The case was still attracting a lot of publicity, especially since the revelation of Samir’s identity and the possible county lines connection. The media came armed with cameras and mobile phones, which doubled as cameras and voice recorders. One man stood with a bulky television camera hefted on his shoulder. Adrian Moss, the media liaison officer, moved among them, chatting with those he knew here and there, while at the same time making sure no one overstepped the mark. Even Banks had to agree that Moss had earned his salary this month.

Banks signed the clipboard and slipped under the tape, joining Annie and Gerry by the side of the beck, next to the children’s playground. Over the narrow strip of fast-moving water, the woods and bushes were full of CSIs and police officers in disposable white boiler suits, carefully grid-searching every inch of the ground.

“What have they got?” Banks asked Annie.

“Don’t know yet,” she said. “They’re being very thorough.”

A few minutes later, one of the searchers marched out of the undergrowth with a scruffy young man in jeans and a white shirt, bent almost double as the officer twisted his arm up his back. “Found something nasty in the woods, sir,” he said, letting go.

The young man swore and rubbed his arm. “Fucking police brutality,” he said and turned to Banks. “You saw that.”

“Saw what?” said Banks.

“You’re all the fucking same.”

Banks held out his hand. “Phone, Donnie,” he said.

“What?”