As Cooper descended the track, the valley sides became lower, the crags disappeared, and the voices of the climbers faded into the background.

In the woods below Litton Foot, the search had resumed. Fry was already there, talking to the anthropologist, but DI Hitchens looked as though he’d arrived only seconds earlier. Swathes of mist hung high in the trees, and water cascaded continuously through the foliage. Before he’d been out of the car long, Cooper’s face was cool with moisture.

‘What’s going on?’ said Hitchens, as Fry picked her way towards them over the uneven ground.

‘The university team are worried about being able to remove the remains intact, because of the way the vegetation has grown through the bones. They say the roots are too strong, and the bones will come apart if they try to move them.’

‘So what are they proposing?’

‘They want to dig down a couple of feet and take the whole thing – top soil and surface vegetation all in one lump – so they can take it apart in the lab without damaging any of the bones.’

‘Can that be done?’

‘They say so. At most, they might have to cut the body in half somewhere along the spine and take it to the lab in two pieces. They’re saying they need to distinguish between any injuries to the bones at the time of death and damage caused by postmortem root growth.’

‘Which do you think is the least costly option?’ said Hitchens.

‘Probably the lab will be cheaper, rather than keeping all these people on site.’

‘We’ll get better results, too,’ called the anthropologist, eavesdropping. ‘If you’re interested in that, at all.’

Hitchens turned away. ‘As long as it’s in their lab,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t like to ask the mortuary to take that sort of mess.’

‘I think we’re going to have to go along with them if we want any results,’ said Fry.

‘Forensic scientists – don’t you think they’re sometimes more trouble than they’re worth? They play hell with our budgets.’

‘Yes, sir. But, unfortunately, they’re the people juries believe these days, not us.’

Cooper discovered that a neighbouring force had loaned a special support dog for the search, one that was trained to find human remains. According to rumour, these dogs practised somewhere in the west of Scotland by locating the corpses of pigs buried in police uniforms. The aroma of decomposing pig flesh was said to be the nearest thing to the smell of human decomposition. But the bit about police uniforms was a joke, surely?