Cooper realized that Michael Clay’s death had taken a hold on his mind. How could it not, when he’d been there himself, in the darkness of the flooded ROC bunker, feeling the debris of the past floating up around him, sensing the presence of death in the water.

This was the sort of thing he would think about at night when he went to bed. His memories would resurface from the mud of his subconscious. The invisible creatures that had swum about his feet; the rough, fibrous thing that had flapped towards the floor. And, most of all, the white face that had turned slowly towards him. A floating, blank-eyed face, staring and staring . . .

Yes, those images he’d created for himself would swirl through his brain, moving in endless spirals until he drifted to sleep. He prayed they wouldn’t stay there for ever, haunting his dreams, too.

THAT MORNING, ENVIRONMENTAL Health officers had visited Le Chien Noir in Edendale. They called Fry to tell her that they had obtained an ELISA kit for detecting animal species content in cooked meat. ELISA wasn’t in the police handbook of acronyms, so Fry had to ask for an explanation. Enzyme-Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay. She was none the wiser.

‘The testing method is based on antibodies raised to heat-resistant species-specific, muscle-related glycol-proteins. On your information, we used the cooked-horse species kit. They’re made in the USA, and we don’t use very many that are species specific.’

‘And the result?’ asked Fry.

‘No horse.’

‘No horse?’

‘Not at Le Chien Noir.’

When Fry put the phone down, she reflected that the people who hadn’t put a foot wrong all week were those she’d had the strongest personal reaction against. The Eden Valley Hunt had been above suspicion, apart from one rogue steward. C.J. Hawleys abattoir in Yorkshire was also operating according to all the regulations, so far as she could tell. And R & G Enterprises were a very respectable, forward-looking company, whatever you might think of the purple slabs of meat coming off their packing line.

No, the trouble had been caused by all those individuals with their personal needs and desires, their troubled emotions and hunger for revenge. Peter Massey just happened to have waited a lot longer for his vengeance, for the day when he could finally achieve a form of justice.

As her phone rang again, some instinct made Fry glance up at the other members of the CID team. At least two people looked hastily away. What were they waiting for? What had they been expecting her to do? She was only answering the phone.

‘Hello, DS Fry.’

‘Diane.’

She recognized the smooth tones immediately, of course. The caller was Gareth Blake. Just the sound of her name from his lips brought back all the feelings she’d been trying to suppress since yesterday. All the activity, the need to respond to Cooper’s call from Birchlow, the visit to the mortuary, the interview with Massey . . . it had all served the same purpose: to avoid the moment that she knew was coming. And to suppress the memories that would now forever bubble up in her mind.