‘This stone,’ said Cooper. ‘It hasn’t been in this position long.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The grass is still green underneath. It bleaches and dies after a few days if it’s covered over like this.’

‘How many days?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘You’re good on observation, Ben, but you always seem to fall down on details.’

‘I’m not Sherlock Holmes,’ said Cooper. ‘We need to ask an expert.’

‘An expert in dead grass – why not?’ Then Fry sighed. ‘A hunger house. God, what next?’

A team from Sheffield University were unloading equipment – shovels and trowels, wire mesh screens for sifting bone fragments from the soil, evidence bags, tape measures and orange markers. One of the students had already used a video camera to record the position of the remains from every angle before the team approached it.

The forensic anthropology group from the university provided services to many police forces in excavating and analysing skeletal remains. Some of the team had even worked for the United Nations, investigating mass graves.

Under the supervision of the forensic anthropologist, the team began sieving soil from around the remains. They would be trying to locate fragments of bone, personal items, anything that had been dropped or didn’t belong in the area.

Cooper stood looking down at the tangle of bone and vegetation, half concealed under the edge of a rock. There was no skull visible, but it could be further down, of course. Until the remains were separated from the earth and plant growth, it was impossible to judge the position of the body, or whether it was intact. Some items had already been photographed, bagged and tagged, and he picked up a bag containing a bone. It felt strangely light in his hand.

‘Ben, what do you think the “flesh eater” is?’ said Fry, breaking into his thoughts.

Cooper waved a hand around the dale. ‘Perhaps Professor Robertson was right when he talked about limestone, Diane. This whole area is limestone. The entire landscape could be the flesh eater.’

Fry nodded. ‘It’s a possibility.’

‘What do you bet some of the bones are missing from this body, too?’ said Cooper.

‘You think the killer might have taken trophies?’

‘I don’t know. But if we find them in his possession, it’s fairly conclusive evidence, isn’t it? He does seem to be a very careful killer. Meticulous, even. My feeling is that he won’t have made many mistakes, if any.’

Around the place where the body had lain and decomposed were patches of earth stained different shades. They marked where the victim’s body fluids had drained out.

Cooper felt a surge of anger, thinking of Audrey Steele lying out in the open in just this way, abandoned to the elements. And now here was another body waiting for a face and a name, another identity to be reconstructed from almost nothing.