‘It is the signature of the swordsmith. Literally it means “Biorthelm made me”. Biorthelm was the pre-eminent smith of the period, and ownership of one of his weapons conferred huge status. Perhaps the most significant part of this discovery, as I mentioned, is that this is an unknown weapon. Not from any collection that I’m aware of. Biorthelm tended to make full-length swords, and as far as I’m aware only one other dagger made by him has ever been found. This is a reconstruction of how it would have looked undamaged.’ His screen now displayed a fifteen-inch-long weapon with a narrow blade reaching a wickedly sharp point, a hand guard separating the blade from the hilt above it.

Delahaye chuckled. ‘That is quite fascinating, Clive. So it shows my little joke about the victim having been stabbed by someone who worked in a museum is false.’

Hancock beamed. ‘Yes indeed. In fact I find it very hard to envisage what circumstances could have given rise to this murder. It’s almost as if some thousand-year-old warrior has emerged from the mists of time and struck a blow of vengeance against those who disturbed his rest.’

‘Who just happened to be a middle-ranking water engineer from Hemel Hempstead,’ Gillard said.

Hancock couldn’t have missed the sarcasm, and could be seen vigorously scratching his head in frustration. It made him look a bit mad.

‘What I’m saying, Clive, is that the more we know, the less likely it seems that this piece of blade can have been the cause of death,’ Gillard said. ‘We have to look at the broader context of this killing. Whoever it was that wanted to kill Ozzy Blanchard had managed to scare him well in advance. They were clearly organised, capable of acting out a premeditated plan. Who then in their right mind would choose a rusty Anglo-Saxon weapon, even if they had it to hand, to dispatch him when a kitchen knife or a baseball bat would have done a more reliable job?’

Hancock shook his head in frustration. ‘But David here confirmed that the damage caused to the spine would have been fatal—’

Delahaye interrupted. ‘Yes, I did, but that doesn’t mean to say that our victim hadn’t already been killed by another method. On the balance of probability it seems more likely that the excavator caused this unusual wound.

‘But both possibilities seem to be extremely small,’ Hancock protested. ‘I mean, what is the chance of criminals burying a body so close to an undiscovered Anglo-Saxon dagger that when the bucket of the excavator dragged him out of the earth, the two were pushed together with enough force to drive the blade into his neck?’

The forensic pathologist was nodding. ‘It’s beyond my remit as an expert witness.’

‘Okay then,’ Gillard said. ‘Give me a third possibility.’

There was a long silence. ‘Suicide?’ Hancock said eventually.