‘Yes. Ozzy drove like a bat out of hell to Rissington Common, not knowing that the Ticketts were waiting at Crystal’s house, with her held captive. The chase ensued, and when Christopher Tickett saw the overturned water company car in the river, guessed that the man they’d been pursuing was either dead or seriously injured and decided to back away. It was only an hour after Aidan and Rory left Crystal’s home, having warned her to keep her mouth shut, that Ozzy climbed over the back fence. He and Crystal returned the back way through allotments to the Anvil Arms, where Guy and Vicky gave them shelter overnight. Next morning Vicky gave them a lift to Crystal’s home in Haslemere, from where they took the camper van.’

‘What I still don’t get, Craig, is how this poor Lithuanian got dug up again and moved.’

‘That was in April this year. According to Crystal, Rowena had let slip that the Rev Matthew was going away for a long weekend back to Liverpool and she was going to miss him. Crystal was worried about her daughter. She had previously had a crush on Tomas, and had been told that he went away unexpectedly back to Lithuania, which upset her. She was only fourteen at the time. Crystal was terrified that Rowena would one day find out what had happened. Anyway, with Matthew Cleaver away, Vicky did an experimental dig in the garden, and when she reached the plastic bag containing the corpse slit it open enough to realise it hadn’t rotted, but turned to adipocere. She rang Crystal and said “It’s now or never.” Vicky had just started doing some work for the Ticketts in a mini-digger, which was still on site. On the Friday she dug an extra practice trench with the mini digger down amongst the riverside willows. Late that same night, Vicky, Crystal and Guy dug up the body, still wrapped in bin bags, and using the Willow Farm quad bike, Vicky took it across to the construction site. They dumped the body in the trench and filled it in. The whole operation only took an hour.’

‘But what about the comb, that initially identified the body as Blanchard’s?’

‘That was, according to Crystal, a last-minute idea from Ozzy himself. He had offered his comb to Crystal, suggesting that she plant it on the body. Crystal and Vicky had already looked up adipocere and having realised it destroyed DNA, agreed there was a chance to disguise the body as Ozzy’s. So Vicky slipped the comb into the back pocket of Tomas’ jeans. Ozzy knew it was unlikely to fool the Ticketts. They probably guessed who the body was, although they weren’t told about the reburial. Ozzy hoped it might stop Arrowsmith and Aqua Western management trying to find him. He probably recognised that it was doomed to fail ultimately, but might give him some time to escape abroad.’