‘Would that have been Corunna Wood?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Chadwick. And I don’t suppose you’ve remembered anything about the man who came asking about the crypt? No? Well, never mind. Thank you for your help.’

Cooper finished the call. The geography and the lack of direct roads in this area were very deceptive. Everything was so close together really, when you could see it – Ravensdale and Tom Jarvis’s place at Litton Foot; Alder Hall and the dense woods on this side of the water; and the austere house where Vernon and Abraham Slack lived, down by the river in Miller’s Dale. There was no distance between them at all.

On his way back to the parking area, he caught sight of a sign below the trail: Stream polluted, don’t drink or paddle. Curious, he made his way down to the edge of the water. He found huge plants growing in the boggy ground, almost choking the stream. Some of them seemed to be a sort of giant rhubarb, but others were the same purple-stemmed monsters he’d seen growing at Litton Foot, the stuff like ten-foot-high cow parsley. He made a mental note to find out what they were some time.

Cooper got his OS map out of the car. It didn’t have Fry’s six-mile zone on it, but he could remember pretty much where it ran. Did the clues in the phone calls really mean anything? Why had the caller led them to Peter’s Stone? Was he trying to mislead them, just having a joke at their expense? Or had they misunderstood his meaning completely?

Fry’s interpretation of the second message suggested Wardlow as a starting point, moving west towards the Gibbet Rock and Litton Foot, where Audrey Steele’s remains had been found. But the line about the flesh eater remained unexplained.

Moving west? Cooper recalled his first visit to Freddy Robertson’s house. The professor had described the traditional funeral procession entering a churchyard from the eastern gate and following the direction of the sun to the grave.

He dialled Fry’s number, hoping she was there for once.

‘Diane, that Beatrix Potter book,’ he said when she answered. ‘Did you have scenes of crime check it for fingerprints?’

‘Yes, but there’s nothing.’

‘Shame.’

‘One thing I found out, though, and quite by accident. One of the SOCOs speaks a bit of German.’

‘German? Are they all doing Open University courses down there, or what?’

‘I’ve no idea. But you know the Beatrix Potter book is called The Tale of Mr Tod?’

‘Yes.’

‘Our educated SOCO pointed out that “Tod” is the German word for death.’

Cooper stared at the carved owl at the entrance to the car park. ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘It fits, though.’

‘Unfortunately, it doesn’t get us anywhere. As a clue, it’s a dead end. So to speak.’

‘By the way, I ran into Maurice Goodwin,’ said Cooper. ‘Remember him, Diane? He’s the man who was supposed to have been keeping an eye on Alder Hall until he fell out with John Casey. He turns out to be Tom Jarvis’s brother-in-law. It makes sense – he lives nearby, so he was on hand if there were any problems.’