“Yeah.” Ellie sighed and turned away, looking out across Thursdale towards Fendmoor Heath and trying not to think of how many bodies the landscape had yielded up over the years. Or how many it might still conceal: it seemed vast and desolate on mornings like this, capable of hiding anything. A pack of wild dogs would almost be a relief, if that was the worst they had to deal with: certainly more comprehensible and less of a threat than whatever had happened here.

“I mean…” said Bert; Ellie turned to see him gesture to the doorway. “The hell did that?”

A good question. “Big red doorkey, maybe.”

“Big red what?”

“You’ve seen them on the telly, Bert. Those battering-rams we use for door-breaching.”

“Oh. Right.” Bert stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. “Don’t suppose there’s many of those knocking around here.”

Once again, the bleeding obvious. But another good point. “Got one in the Land Rover, as it goes,” she said. “We had a spare at the old station, but the powers that be took it back.”

“Glad you’ve still got one. Bloody need it one of these days for that lot.” Bert motioned with his head in the direction of Thursdale and Barrowman Farm.

Ellie eyed the front of the house again. The Harpers were the only locals who sprang to mind as potential culprits, but this would’ve been extreme even for them. And what motive would they have had? She was certain she hadn’t mentioned who’d discovered the body during yesterday’s visit; even if she had, why would the Harpers go after the Becks?

For information, maybe. Find out who’d done it, then settle things their own way. Ellie looked again at the house, at the mark above the door. What kind of face would Liz Harper show if she saw that?

“Should we go in?” said Bert.

“Best had,” said Ellie, grateful for the ‘we’. She still had her baton; the spray, too, but she wasn’t sure how much was left in it. The house’s silence, plus its gaping door and windows, made her wish she’d brought her twelve-bore with her.

Now she was being stupid. The Becks could still be inside, injured or hiding from whoever attacked them. They mightn’t have heard her calling out. Ellie went towards the house, halting a couple of yards from the entrance; the darkness in the hallway looked thick as smoke. She shone her torch into it. “Sally? Grant? Kate?”