‘Well, I’d shovelled all the compost to one side, and was digging the ground underneath. But it looked like it had been dug before, because it was all soft. Not so much clay. And it was in this soft earth that I found the fingers.’

‘Did you find anything else of interest?’

Stewie looked to his mother, and then back at the officer.

‘Did he tell you something?’ PC Noakes asked her.

‘He made some reference to Cluedo. He’s obsessed with the game,’ Mrs Ransome said.

‘The Rev Green stabbed him on the stairs with the dagger,’ Stewie said. ‘He’s a murderer.’

‘Are you referring to Matthew Cleaver? Or is this just part of the game?’

‘I don’t like him,’ Stewie said. ‘He’s not a nice man.’

‘What makes you say that, Stewie? Has he done something horrible to you?’

He shook his head. ‘Not to me.’

‘To who?’

‘Can’t say.’ He looked at his mother, and then down at the table.

‘Did you witness something?’ the PC asked.

There was no reply, and Stewie was looking straight down at the table in front of him, his face flushed.

‘Do you know anything about this?’ PC Noakes asked Mrs Ransome.

The elderly woman shook her head. ‘I know he’s taken against Matt for some reason, which is surprising because he’s always been willing to play Cluedo with him. And Matt is ever so friendly with everybody.’

‘All right. I think we’ll leave it there for now.’

Monday

Gillard arrived with DC Carl Hoskins at Reigate Police Station at nine the next morning. The Rev Matthew Cleaver had been detained the previous evening, and was now sitting at an interview table in jeans and a rugby shirt, his hair pulled back in a ponytail, arms folded.

‘I’ve been kept in all night because of something found in a compost heap in my garden,’ he complained, as the two officers sat down. The duty solicitor had just arrived, and Gillard prepped the tape.

‘Regardless of whether you were involved, we couldn’t allow you to go back home because of the danger of contaminating any evidence that we might find,’ Gillard said. ‘As you know we are investigating the discovery of a body, and we have good reason to believe these two fingers may have been part of that body.’

‘Well, I can tell you that I’ve had nothing whatever to do with it,’ Cleaver said. ‘The uniformed guys who cautioned me last night said whatever it was Stewie discovered was found in a compost heap.’

‘That’s right,’ Hoskins said. ‘In your garden.’

‘But that compost heap was there long before I arrived. Stewie knows that. I don’t have time to do the gardening, I’m an urban boy. I don’t know a cucumber from a thistle.’

‘So you say,’ Hoskins said, looking down at an iPad where details of last night’s interview were recorded.