‘Maybe, Mrs Freud, but right now I’m not sure about anything where Kate Stonebridge is concerned.’ Matt dried the last of the mugs. ‘If it’s alright with you, I’m going to suggest to Will that he and I go and join some of the guys out on the fen. It will do him good to feel useful. He has his mobile, so if anything happens here, you could contact us.’

‘Go for it. I’ll call if anything occurs.’

Matt went out to where Will was pacing around the garden. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s get out there and help. Liz has got everything covered here.’

Will readily agreed.

The light was failing, and clouds were forming in great boiling grey masses. Matt nodded towards the sky. ‘If it gets any darker, they’ll be calling everyone in. All we need is another bloody downpour. So, if you’re ready, let’s go over to Tylers Lane. If any of our old cronies are still there, you might get a chance to have a look at Grove’s place.’

Donning waterproofs, the two of them set off down the lane.

They arrived to find a lone officer, another new lad, still on duty and checking through the shambles that had once been a garden. The old Berridge place had always been a hovel, and it hadn’t got any better.

‘Sorry. It’s all locked up again. CID have left and so has Mr Grove, although I understand he is coming back later tonight.’

Will stood chatting to the young PC, while Matt clambered through the shrubs in an overgrown flowerbed trying to see in through one of the grimy windows. The interior was almost invisible through the smears, but he could just make out a jumble of boxes, books and other junk. The frames of the windows were rotten, the exterior walls decorated with damp patches and dangerous looking cracks. He wondered how an educated man could live in such squalor.

Will joined him, and they peered into the gloom. Matt commented that other than the electric light fittings, it was very much the same as when Isaac Berridge had stood at the table skinning his hare.

‘They said he has a computer, well, I can’t see it.’ Will rubbed at the grimy glass.

‘Maybe it’s upstairs in his bedroom. There are only two rooms up there. One was a fair-sized bedroom, and the other a sort of windowless box room. Berridge used the small room for storing everything from dozens of jars of jams and preserves to seed potatoes and dahlia tubers. He even used to make his own carrot whisky and parsnip wine, oh, and a concoction that he brewed up and sold to the local eel men and fishermen to keep them free from the ague, whatever that was. The old men used to swear by it and paid a good price for a small bottle.’