‘The body was lying there for eighteen months,’ said Cooper. ‘But that bag was left only a few days ago.’

Jarvis scowled across the valley. ‘There’s a lot of shit in the countryside.’

‘Maybe.’ Cooper realized he wasn’t going to get any further without antagonizing Jarvis. ‘By the way, what did you do with the excreta you found?’

‘What did I do with it?’ said Jarvis in amazement. ‘What do you think I did with it?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

‘I chucked it on the compost heap. There’s no point in wasting good cack.’

‘And it’s still there?’

‘Of course it is. Unless some bugger snuck in during the night and nicked it. You never know these days.’

‘I wonder if I could ask you to leave it where it is for a while, sir.’

Jarvis stared at him. ‘It’ll just rot down,’ he said. ‘That’s the point of a compost heap.’

‘I’d like to get someone to take a sample. Just in case we get the chance to do a DNA profile for comparison.’

‘A DNA profile?’

‘Yes, sir.’

But Jarvis continued to look sceptical. Cooper couldn’t blame him. He didn’t rate his own chances too highly, either of getting it approved or of persuading a SOCO that it was high priority. Somebody was bound to list the request under ‘shit jobs’.

‘I don’t know much about DNA,’ said Jarvis finally, ‘but it has to be taken from cells in the body, doesn’t it?’

‘Any cells with a nucleus,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s right.’

‘Well, cack …’ Then Jarvis paused, as if amazed that he was having to explain it, even to Cooper. ‘Cack is waste stuff, undigested food. It’s from whatever rubbish you’ve been eating. If you tested that crap, you’d likely get the DNA profile of a Big Mac and large fries with chicken nuggets. Not that there aren’t plenty of those walking around the streets of Edendale on two legs, but what good would it do you?’

‘We’d be hoping for some cells that might have sloughed off the gut lining as the material was passing through the intestine,’ said Cooper patiently.

‘You reckon?’

‘But we’d have to get to it pretty quickly. I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I think the DNA in excreta will degrade within a couple of weeks. In this case, it hasn’t been exposed to the sun, which is a good thing. Ultra violet degrades DNA faster than anything.’

‘Bugger all this,’ said Jarvis. ‘What are you doing about the bastard who shot my dog?’

Cooper looked across at the woods. ‘We’re visiting Alder Hall this afternoon to see what’s going on over there.’

‘Bloody hell, action. Well, I’ve got more spare timber – I’ll start setting up the gibbet, shall I?’

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty