‘What would I be busy with?’

‘Well, I don’t know. There are plenty of other ongoing cases in this division.’

Cooper sighed. ‘OK, Diane. Was that what the phone call was about?’

‘No. Believe it or not, that was a helpful anthropologist. With a bit of luck, he might be able to produce records of the bone collection at Alder Hall.’

‘That is a bit of luck.’

‘The first one so far.’

‘I have to say, those bones looked pretty old to me,’ said Cooper. ‘If there was a recent human skull from those remains in Ravensdale, it would stand out, wouldn’t it?’

‘An expert, are you? Learned a bit more than we thought from your friend the professor?’

Cooper shook his head, trying to shake off the irritation. ‘It might mean we don’t have to bring Dr Jamieson’s team in to look at the bones, if the records tally. So we’d save on the budget, too.’

‘And, hey presto, everyone’s happy,’ said Fry.

But Cooper looked at her thoughtfully. Happy was far from how she looked.

‘According to John Casey, those bones were found somewhere in the grounds of the hall,’ she said. ‘Do you think Mrs Chadwick would know where exactly?’

‘She might do.’

‘Ask her, then.’

‘Sure.’

He looked down at his desk. Work was waiting for him. If anything was really urgent – well, it was hard luck, unless he could snatch a few minutes. But Fry hadn’t finished yet.

‘Ben, you don’t believe the Alder Hall crypt is what he means by “the dead place”, do you?’ she said.

‘It’s just a feeling. You might not understand.’

‘Try me.’

‘I felt … Well, when I was down there, it felt as though the place had been dead for too long. Does that make sense?’

Fry stared at him, as though she might actually be trying to understand him. ‘It’s no more than that?’

‘Sorry.’

Cooper put his jacket back on, and they headed out. He didn’t like to admit to Fry what he was actually thinking. It was something Freddy Robertson had said to him, when he’d been explaining the purpose of a sarcophagus and the charnel house, and the rituals that went with them.

The memory had come back to him as he stood in the crypt at Alder Hall. For a moment, Cooper had felt a hint of what his ancient ancestors had instinctively believed. The bones piled in that crypt had been perfectly clean and dry, free of the last shreds of flesh that had once clung to them. If it was the fragments of a physical structure that held a soul to its body, then the spirits that hovered around those bones had long since departed.

‘By the way,’ said Fry in the car, ‘I’ve started making enquiries into John Casey’s background.’

‘The property agent? Why?’

‘Well, those two sets of remains were found on Alder Hall estate land. Admittedly, they were much nearer to Mr Jarvis’s property than to the hall, but that’s only because of the size of the estate. Casey is the man immediately responsible for the site, and he has the opportunity for unrestricted access, too. Once you’re inside those gates, anything you do is entirely out of public view. That doesn’t apply to anyone approaching from the Ravensdale side, where there are residents in the cottages, and walkers on the footpath.’