He’d been right about the weather getting in. A rotten timber cracked as soon as it took his weight, and part of the remaining roof tilted inwards. Tiles slithered and cascaded on to the ground, taking Cooper with them. He managed to cling to the branch just long enough to gain some control of his fall, then he landed in a crash of broken stone.

He sat up, patted his pockets to find his torch and shone it around the interior of the building as he brushed the dust off his clothes. Cooper ran the beam along one wall, then the next. He stopped near the opening into the larger room and moved the torch back a few inches, not quite sure of what he’d seen the first time.

‘Oh God, how do I get out of here again?’

Inside the abandoned building, the roots of an oak tree had burst through the broken floor like a tangle of snakes. Brambles lay thick on the stones. And blades of grass grew sick and pale through the eyes of the skull.

‘McGowan is saying nothing, except he’s blaming Richard Slack,’ said Fry when she broke off the interview to brief the DI. ‘Crucially, he won’t reveal where Audrey Steele’s body was delivered to. His evidence will be critical in that respect.’

Hitchens had rolled back his shirt cuffs to wipe the condensation off his window. The outside was just as wet, as the rain had been falling again for the past three hours.

‘On the basis of the toxicology report, it looks as though the body had been partially embalmed,’ he said.

‘That might have been done to keep the body fresh. On the other hand, I understand it’s becoming more and more common for funeral directors to carry out some cosmetic embalming as routine.’

‘So it might not be significant?’

‘No.’

‘But you think the body went to Professor Robertson, I suppose?’ said Hitchens.

‘I’m sure of it. Who else could it be?’

The DI squeaked his chair anxiously, seemed about to answer, then changed his mind.

‘What’s your strategy, Diane?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to leave McGowan to stew for a bit, then I’m going to let him see that I know he’s lying.’

‘About what?’

‘The body they put in the coffin in place of Audrey Steele’s. We know it wasn’t human.’

‘Not human?’

Fry realized she hadn’t told Hitchens about the anthropologist’s findings, so she brought him up to date.

‘Unbelievable,’ he said.

‘It seems all too believable in the present enquiry. It’s almost as if these experts create problems for us, instead of helping us solve them.’

‘No indication what kind of animal?’

‘Not yet. They need the opinion of another expert for that, apparently. A different discipline. And more delay while they find someone who’s available and the evidence is shuttled around the country.’