‘Can the people up there see into the actual area?’ Alleyn asked.

Sergeant Oliphant said: ‘No, sir. Their own trees as well as this belt of willows screen it. They can see the stretch on the far side above the bridge, and a wee way below it.’

‘That’s Mr Danberry-Phinn’s preserve, isn’t it?’ asked the Chief Constable, ‘above the bridge?’

‘Mr Danberry-Phinn?’ Alleyn said sharply.

‘Mr Octavius Danberry-Phinn to give you the complete works. The ‘Danberry’ isn’t insisted upon. He’s the local eccentric I told you about. He lives in the top house up there. We don’t have a village idiot in Swevenings; we have a bloody-minded old gentleman. It’s more classy,’ said Sir James acidly.

‘Danberry-Phinn,’ Alleyn repeated. ‘Isn’t there some connection there with the Lacklanders?’

Sir James said shortly: ‘Both Swevenings men, of course.’ His voice faded uncertainly as he floundered into a patch of reeds. Somewhere close at hand a dog howled dismally and a deep voice apostrophized it. ‘Ah, stow it, will you.’ A light bobbed up ahead of them.

‘Here we are,’ Sir James said. ‘That you, Gripper?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the deep voice. The mackintosh cape of a uniformed constable shone in the torchlight.

‘Dog still at it seemingly,’ said the sergeant.

‘That’s right, Mr Oliphant. I’ve got him tethered here.’ A torch flashed on Skip, tied by a handkerchief to a willow branch.

‘Hallo, old fellow,’ Alleyn said.

They all waited for him to go through the thicket. The constable shoved back a dripping willow branch for him.

‘You’ll need to stoop a little, sir.’

Alleyn pushed through the thicket. His torchlight darted about in the rain and settled almost at once on a glistening mound.

‘We got some groundsheets down and covered him,’ the sergeant said. ‘When it looked like rain.’

‘Good.’

‘… and we’ve covered up the area round the corpse as best we could. Bricks and one or two planks from the old boat shed yonder. But I dare say the water’s got under just the same.’

Alleyn said: ‘Fair enough. We couldn’t ask for better. I think before we go any nearer we’ll get photographs. Come through, Bailey. Do the best you can. As it stands and then uncovered, with all the detail you can get in case it washes out before morning. By jove, though, I believe it’s lifting.’

They all listened. The thicket was loud with the sound of dripping foliage, but the heavy drumming of rain had stopped and by the time Bailey had set up his camera a waxing moon had ridden out over the valley.

When Bailey had taken his last flash-photograph of the area and the covered body, he took away the groundsheet and photographed the body again from many angles, first with the tweed hat over the face and then without it. He put his camera close to Colonel Cartarette’s face and it flashed out in the night with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. Only when all this had been done did Alleyn, walking delicately, go closer, stoop over the head and shine his torch full on the wound.