The car was a silver Audi with a personalised plate. DAV3C1: Dave Chapple, of course, either picking up Charlotte or bringing her back. Utter insanity, slipping out in this weather, but Dave was used to getting away with everything, and Charlotte was in love with him, or thought she was. Ellie had done things every bit as stupid at that age.

She grunted, and looked again at the scene. There was a mark on the wall above the doorway; she wasn’t surprised to see it was the same as the one at the Becks’. The Harpers’ work? Some kind of response to the one by Tony’s body? But if there was a feud, how had the Becks and Famuyiwas been pulled in?

The tyre tracks were fresh; they’d been made that morning, after the snow had stopped. And, since the bar’s floor was covered in snow, presumably after whatever had happened there. So the Harpers might not have caused the damage; even so, they couldn’t have missed it.

There were footprints on the bar floor. Ellie took out her phone and photographed the scene; she really needed SOCO here, the full circus, but there’d be no chance of that till the roads were clear.

Whoever was responsible for what had happened here and at Wakeman Farm last night could have lingered to capture Dave and Charlotte too, along with whichever Harpers had shown up at the pub. But then the tractor would still be here. Ellie sighed; no point second-guessing herself to death. She took a deep breath, and went inside.

The snug was empty. Thin drifts of snow glittered on the carpet. Some of it might be glass. The pendulum clock lay in pieces, and the stuffed pike, free at last from its glass case, had been torn in half, stuffing strewn across the floor. Its glass eye stared ceilingward, jaws gaping in a last protest. The charcoal symbol was on the wall above the fireplace.

Ellie’s feet crunched in snow and splintered glass. The row of optics glinted behind the bar. She went through the snug and past the pool table. Cold wind blew in her face. The door by the toilets, the one marked PRIVATE, had been smashed down. At the end of the passage beyond it, another doorway gaped open into the back yard. There was snow on the floor.

Be thorough, she told herself. Be methodical. She checked the toilets, then went down the passage and checked the kitchen. All were empty. No sign of anyone, or – except for the doors and windows – of a fight.

More glass crunched as she climbed the stairs; when she reached the landing, a door clicked shut at the end and Ellie went very still. There was snow on the landing carpet. Ellie breathed out. Only the wind.