Although it was two days after his mother had died, Diane Fry was still being unusually attentive. It made Cooper nervous. Like an efficient supervisor, she’d been concerned for his welfare, tentatively asking the usual questions to test his state of mind, his ability to do the job, and wondering whether she should send him home, in case he embarrassed his colleagues. And now she’d left a message asking him to meet her here at the sculpture trail in Tideswell Dale, if he felt up to it. What was all that about?

In the end, she’d even agreed to collect Cooper at his flat, since his foot had stiffened up and was making it impossible for him to drive.

‘We’ve had a busy two days,’ Fry said in the car.

‘I’m sorry I missed them.’

‘We’ve had a whole mass of interviews to do. Not just Abraham Slack – who still won’t talk, by the way. But we’ve also had Melvyn Hudson in, and Billy McGowan again. And your friend Tom Jarvis. He’s a straight talker, isn’t he? Mr Jarvis, I mean?’

‘Yes, you could say that.’

‘I quite liked him.’

Cooper’s eyebrows rose at that. Fry never liked anybody.

‘And he speaks highly of you, Ben.’

‘I don’t know why. I never did much for him.’

‘They were a mixed bunch, those three. But they had one thing in common. They all hated Richard Slack.’

Fry stopped to fumble for change and put some money in the machine for the car park. The gate was unlocked, allowing them to drive through on to the track that led up to the picnic area above the sculpture trail.

‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ said Cooper. ‘They all knew Vernon’s history, I suppose. And none of them wanted to put him through any more than he’d suffered already at the hands of his father.’

‘Clannish people in the funeral business, aren’t they?’

‘It’s “them and us”. Remember?’

‘Don’t I just?’

Fry got out of the car to close the gate. The choked stream moved sluggishly just below the track.

‘Look down there in the water,’ said Cooper.

‘What? I can’t see anything.’

‘Look at the plants.’

‘The giant rhubarb?’

‘That’s Gunnera manicata, from the South American swamps. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was looking at the other stuff, the giant hogweed.’

‘Oh, yeah. And where does that come from?’

‘The Caucasus, I think.’

‘I never knew the vegetation of Derbyshire was so cosmopolitan.’

‘Be careful you don’t touch it,’ he said, as Fry took a step closer to the edge of the stream.

‘Why?’