“She’s not there, pet,” the elderly lady said, then, hopefully: “Can I take a message?”

Ramsay ignored the offer. “Where is she then?” he asked.

“At work, pet,” the woman said. “ She’s a dinner nanny at the little school. She’ll be home soon. You can wait in with me if you like.”

“No,” Ramsay said. “Thank you.” She was so lonely that he knew it would take him hours to escape once he was in the house. “It was the lad I wanted to talk to.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, he’s not there. He’s at school.” She looked at him curiously. “At least he went off on the school bus this morning,” she said. “Are you from the welfare?”

She had placed Ramsay as an education officer checking on truancy.

“No,” he said. “It’s nothing like that. I’ll call back later when he’s home from school.”

Disappointed, she stood on the concrete path that divided her immaculate lawn into identical halves until he disappeared from the crescent and onto the green.

I suppose, he thought wryly, that was the neighbourhood watch in action.

The second address given to Hunter by the boys in the bus shelter was Grey’s Farm. Ramsay recognised the name. Robert Grey was the man who had been drinking heavily in the Castle on the evening after Alice Parry’s death, and Ramsay had turned into the farmyard by mistake, in the snow, when he was looking for Henshaw’s bungalow. Ramsay came to a five-bar gate and swung it open a little nervously, expecting the dogs to bark again. The house was square, built of grey stone, and had a grey-slate roof. The cobbled yard was covered in mud. By the side of the house was a barn, and approached by a track to the side of the house was a cowshed and a large, open building containing farm machinery and an ancient tractor. An empty Land Rover with the engine still running stood in the yard. As Ramsay approached the house, Robert Grey appeared on the storm porch and almost ran to meet the policeman. He was shaking and Ramsay wondered if he had been drinking again. His behaviour was erratic and bizarre.

“Come with me!” he bellowed. “Where’s your car? You can park in the farmyard and I’ll take you up in the Land Rover. You’d not make it in a car. Man, you were quick. I’d just left Celia in the house phoning the police.”

He sprinted towards the Land Rover and turned to Ramsay, expecting him to follow. Ramsay joined him, carefully trying to avoid the worst areas of muck.

“Mr. Grey,” he said. “What is this all about?”