Will was reading Paradise Lost. He showed no sign of surprise at Jonathan’s news. He consented at once to go to the policeman’s cottage, and went with Jonathan directly downhill to the village. The snowdrifts seemed not to trouble him, and, however difficult the road, he seemed to find instinctively the most passable track. It did not take him more than half an hour to get them both to the house where the village policeman lived. They found him finishing his tea.

‘Mr Bill Fullalove? Dead? Hanging over that there gate at the top of Groaning Spinney?’ The policeman took it all in and appeared to remain impassive. ‘That’ll mean an inquest, that will. I’d better get along up there. Do Doctor Fielding know?’

‘Mr Bradley will go for him,’ Will replied. ‘He’ll be up there as soon as we are, to help take that poor fellow home.’

‘Be you coming along of me, then?’

‘Of course I’m coming along. And pretty bad going that is, all along up there, and the snow coming down the way it is.’

‘Well, I’m glad ee be coming, then,’ said the policeman, putting the last piece of bread into his mouth, and taking his helmet off its nail. He swallowed his half-cup of tea, put the helmet on, pulled on his uniform overcoat and his thick gloves, and put his head into the scullery.

‘Shan’t be long, lass.’

‘Mind how ee go, then. ’Tis snowin’ again.’

‘Ah, I’ll mind. I got Will North along of me. Mr Bill Fullalove have died of the cold up to Groaning Spinney.’

‘Dear love! A strong gentleman like him! Whoever would have thought it! Got thy thick scarf I knitted for ee?’

‘No.’

‘You just take and put it on, then.’

The policeman unfastened his overcoat and picked up the scarf. Will North pulled his cap further over his eyes, re-buttoned his coat, picked up his stick, and the two of them set out through the wettish, now lightly falling snow and made for the top of the spinney.

Meanwhile Jonathan had gone for the doctor, and, on second thoughts, he decided to borrow the doctor’s telephone and call up the Cheltenham police. Then he tramped doggedly uphill again to where he had left the body. His elderly aunt, wearing a ski-ing suit she had borrowed from Deborah, enormous gauntlet gloves of her own, and Jonathan’s motor-cycling helmet, met him in Groaning Spinney, shone her torch to make sure it was he, and insisted on going with him.

‘Why?’ he enquired, as they turned further into the wood to gain a little shelter among the trees. ‘I mean, how did you know anything about it?’