‘It would have to be someone fascinated by the process of death.’

‘You’re thinking that he might have strangled Audrey Steele after she was dead?’

‘Why else would he take the hyoid bone?’

‘We don’t know that he took it. We know that it’s missing, that’s all. The anthropologist’s report said it could have been carried away by an animal. A rat or a fox. Or a bird – he said it might have been a bird, too. Diane, that bone could be anywhere by now.’

‘He’s been coming back to the body,’ said Fry firmly. ‘If anyone or anything took that bone, it was him.’

‘How many people would recognize a hyoid bone if they saw one? How many would even know it exists?’

But Fry wasn’t going to give in. ‘Anyone with some training in anatomy. In fact, anyone with experience of bodies.’

For a moment, they watched the university team getting back to work with their spades and the dog quartering the ground lower down the slope.

‘Diane, I’ve been thinking abut Tom Jarvis,’ said Cooper. ‘He has four dogs running loose on his property down at Litton Foot. Well, three now. He’s had them a while, too – since they were puppies.’

‘So?’

‘How come none of them alerted him to the presence of a decomposing body a few yards from the edge of his property? Surely the dogs couldn’t have missed the smell, even if he didn’t notice it himself?’

‘Was the body exposed to the air during decomposition?’

Cooper hesitated. ‘When it was found, it was.’

‘But it was already skeletonized by then.’

‘Yes. The thing is, we’ve been assuming it was exposed to the air the whole time. That would fit in with the time scale, the rapid rate of skeletonization. But in some of the earlier stages, the smell must have been pretty bad. It would have spread over a wide area, especially if it had been carried on the wind. You wouldn’t need a dog trained in locating human remains. Any mutt with a functioning sense of smell would have noticed it.’

They walked on a few steps, Fry silent as she let Cooper think it through. He stopped and turned towards her.

‘On the other hand, if the body was originally covered or wrapped in something, the smell would have been confined, but the rate of decomposition would have been slower.’

‘There’s another implication to that,’ said Fry.

‘Yes, I know. It would definitely mean that someone returned to the scene – and exposed the body. But the lab didn’t report any indication of postmortem interference with the remains. None that might have been of human origin.’

‘We could get the SOCOs to go over the scene again.’

‘With a fine tooth-comb this time?’