Ellie pointed up. “I’m gonna head back up the road, get some shots of that ledge from above. If he was up there –”

“Fair enough.” Milly eyed the body and grimaced again. “Just don’t be too long, okay?”

“Quick as I can.”

Ellie made better time heading back to the car; negotiating footpaths like this was another thing she had more experience with than her friend. She parked by the spot overlooking the woods, leant over the barrier till she had the ledge in view, then took a series of wide-angle shots on her phone, with and without the flash, before zooming in for close-ups.

Tom Graham would have bothered with none of this. He’d already have decided he was dealing with an accident and nothing more. But Ellie believed in doing her job. She didn’t have much else. Besides, she still had some instincts left, and they were prompting her to look more closely.

She zoomed in on sections of the ledge, again photographing both with and without the flash, moving from one end to the other. Harper would have been sitting against the end to her right – it’d been his right leg drawn up for balance, so the drop would have been on that side of him.

She zoomed in closer, and if she hadn’t she’d have missed it. One area of rock that had remained clear of snow was smudged with what looked like soot and patched with lichen, against which smears of dried blood showed. To capture those Ellie had to straddle the crash barrier and lean out to an almost life-threatening degree, but she managed.

When she did, she saw that the soot wasn’t a smudge at all, but a symbol of some kind: a straight vertical line, with three shorter horizontal ones pointing off from it to the left. Made using charcoal, maybe. She didn’t recognise it, whatever it was. She tightened the focus on the symbol and took more pictures.

“You quite finished up there, David fucking Bailey?” Milly shouted up from the path.

Ellie climbed back over the barrier. “I’m done. You?”

“Been stood here watching you like piffy on a rock bun for the last five minutes.”

Ellie drove back down and trotted up the footpath to Milly. “Anything?” she asked as they ventured back down through the trees.

“Yes and no.”

“What?”

“There’s some cuts and scratches – one on the forehead that bled a bit.”

“A fight?”

“Or just a fall. Easy enough in this weather, especially if you’ve had a few.”

“Which, knowing Tony, he had.”

“Bit of a piss-head?”

“Only at weekends, but last night was Friday night. So if I know him, he’ll have been up past closing time at...” Ellie stopped and frowned, peering through the trees.

“What’s up?”

“Tell you in a sec. You were saying – why’s it yes and no?”

“The injuries are inconclusive. But look at this.”