‘We’ll just have to keep a close eye on the weather, then, if the investigation drags on,’ he said. ‘If necessary, we can arrange for some officers to bed down at the B&Bs in the village.’

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Stevens said. ‘I’ll call control and let them know it’s a possibility so they can prepare for it.’

‘Well, hopefully it won’t come to it. Meanwhile, let’s go back over the bridge and have a team talk. I want to know if the uniforms have come up with anything and we can work out where to go from there.’

The uniforms had been hard at work. As well as cracking on with door-to-door enquiries, they had also managed to gain access to the small village hall so that it could be used as a base.

It was just behind the square and a short walk from the crime scene. A group of pensioners who had been taking part in a social gathering there had been asked to leave and they’d been only too willing to oblige. Like everyone else in the village they were in a state of shock and struggling to come to terms with what had happened.

The inspector in charge was waiting in the hall with four other uniformed officers. His name was Dave Boyd, a portly northerner with a pencil moustache. He was clearly on top of things and was in constant touch with those members of his team who were searching the field and talking to people in the village.

‘We’ve managed to bring in twenty officers,’ he told the two detectives. ‘That’s more than I expected, given the pressure on resources.’

James briefed the officers on what he’d learned from Sonia Jenkins and the pathologist. He also mentioned the threatening message and the dead partridge, but stressed that at this stage there was no evidence to indicate a connection.

‘Obviously we’re hoping there won’t be,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s not a serious line of inquiry. I want you to pass the information onto the team, but impress on them that it’s not to be made public.’

The update from Inspector Boyd was not encouraging. So far nobody who’d been questioned had seen or heard anything during the night.

‘It seems that very few people ever venture out that late, so the streets are almost always empty,’ he said. ‘But some have spotted Charlie Jenkins walking his dog in the past around the square and across the footbridge into the field.’

‘So he’d established a routine that his killer was probably aware of,’ James said. ‘He or she would have known where the best place was to strike. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the pathologist is right and the perp was waiting behind the tree. The dog might well have led Charlie right into the trap.’

‘It’s also possible he’d arranged to meet someone in the field,’ Stevens said. ‘Maybe the woman he’d been seeing. They argued and things turned nasty.’