The unpleasant task of searching the body yielded a wallet containing a driver’s licence and National Insurance card in Tony Harper’s name; Ellie sealed them into separate evidence bags and slipped them into her jacket pocket.

“Still on for tonight?” Milly said.

“’Spect so. Couple of stops to make first.”

“Harpers?”

“Yeah.”

Milly poked her arm. “Just be careful, okay?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Ellie grimaced. “Pity sometimes we can’t go armed.”

“Don’t forget to get some decent wine in.”

Ellie drove on to the station, to find Tom Graham setting off with the girl and Rick. “All right there, Ellie. Just running them home.”

“I’m heading up to the Bell, then I’ll go break the news to the Harpers.”

“Fair enough.” If Graham wondered why she was going to the Bell, he didn’t ask. To him, coppering was a simple job that Ellie overcomplicated by worrying too much. He’d have missed half the things she and Milly had noticed at the scene, and even if he hadn’t, he’d still have decided Tony Harper had got lost in the snow and frozen while drunk. “Don’t be too long. Latest weather report says it’ll be another bad one tonight – worst yet. Even the hill road might get cut off. Don’t want to get caught in that.”

“Any word on when?”

“Six-ish at the latest.”

“Kay. Thanks, Tom.”

In the back of Tom’s X5, Rick and Kate huddled together. The girl gave Ellie a wan smile and raised her hand in a wave. Ellie nodded back, and watched them drive away.

Light, intermittent snow continued to fall. It was just after three o’clock; one and a half to two hours before dark, and – in theory – three before the snowstorm hit, but Ellie knew better by now than to gamble her life on the accuracy of weather reports. She wanted to be home no later than five, and even that felt as though she was cutting it close. “Better crack on then,” she muttered, and drove to Longhowe Road.

Derbyshire’s little local police stations had closed years earlier in favour of larger central stations, like the one in Matlock Ellie and Tom were nominally based at. They were usually assigned the Barsall area anyway since they lived there; knowing the territory could be crucial when searching for those lost hikers.

The old station should have been sold off, but there’d been trouble finding a buyer and then the council decided to turn it into a museum or heritage centre. But nothing came of that either, so although the blue lamp and any other identifying signs had been removed, Longhowe Road Station was still the Derbyshire Constabulary’s. It mainly served to store emergency equipment and, when weather cut the village off, as now, as a base of operations. A relic of a different time, stuck in a kind of limbo; Ellie could relate to that.