His head dropped. ‘The police gave me a number for Victim Support but they also interrogated me as if they thought I’d done it. Ripped someone apart.’ He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘No one with a soul could do that to another human being.’

I waited. The music piped into the gym changed to an upbeat number, no doubt to fool people into believing that working out was fun. It didn’t seem to be doing much for Gareth. For a long moment he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move. Then he grabbed a small towel, wiped his face and looked up at me.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked quietly.

I didn’t smile because this wasn’t a cause for celebration. Regardless of the reason I was here, my heart still went out to him. I touched his arm gently to show that I appreciated what he was doing and kept my voice quiet. ‘How did you find the body?’

‘I work at Glen Bart farm. One of the sheep had escaped from a field so I went to try and find it.’

A sheep. I couldn’t help wondering if it was the same one that had bled out in Bellows’ trailer. I kept my mouth shut though, and gave him a small encouraging nod.

‘There was a trail. I’m no tracker, but there were marks made by some shoes that didn’t look like they matched those of anyone else from Glen Bart.’ At my questioning glance, Gareth elaborated further. ‘We all wear wellies or steel-capped boots. These looked…’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Smart.’

‘You could tell that from the footprints?’

‘It had been raining so there was quite a lot of mud. One of the prints had a logo on it. Some kind of weird squiggle.’ He stood up and walked to a nearby mirror, then breathed on it before drawing the logo in the steam. I squinted. It looked oddly familiar but I couldn’t place it. ‘We’ve had quite a few problems in the past with sheep rustling. Only one animal seemed to be missing but that didn’t mean whoever took it wouldn’t be back for more.’

‘Sheep rustling? That’s still a thing?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ he answered grimly. ‘Anyway, I tracked the footprints for a mile or so up an embankment and onto Dead Man’s Hill. It’s called that because it’s not far from the cemetery.’ His expression took on a morose cast. ‘Or that used to be the reason.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The first thing I saw didn’t make any sense. I thought it was a stick at first. But when I got closer there were some … bits attached to it.’ He looked green. ‘Flesh,’ he whispered. ‘Blood. I think it was a rib. I still didn’t have any reason to believe it was human. In fact, I wondered if a dog might have got hold of the sheep somehow. Old man Jones at the other end of town has a bloody husky which … never mind.’