‘He has some sheep, too.’

Massey sniffed. ‘Ah, well. They keep the grass down, I suppose.’

‘The dead man’s name was Patrick Rawson. Does it mean anything to you?’

‘Not a thing. He wasn’t from around here, though, was he?’

‘No.’

Before he left, Cooper gazed around the yard of Rough Side Farm. Not much money had been spent on maintaining the buildings in recent years. That was a common enough story. Matt was the same at Bridge End – he’d rather spend money on a new tractor than replace a shed roof. He said that if farm buildings were built properly in the first place, they ought to last for ever. In practice, the problem was just passed on to the next generation as part of their inheritance.

Cooper noticed a horseshoe nailed to the door of an old byre. But it was turned with the points up, to catch the luck, the way the old superstition said.

‘Do you ride yourself, Mr Massey?’ he asked.

‘Ride what? A horse, do you mean?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Massey shook his head. ‘Never. That’s for girls, isn’t it?’

‘Not necessarily.’

The farmer politely walked Cooper to his car, as if escorting an important visitor. He even removed his cap and held it in both hands as he watched Cooper negotiate the large, muddy puddles in the farm entrance.

‘What about your family?’ asked Cooper. ‘Any sons ready to take over Rough Side Farm? Or daughters, perhaps?’

Massey shook his head. ‘I’ve got two sons and a daughter, but they’re not interested in farming. They work in computers, and logistics, and human resources. I don’t think any of those things existed when I was at school. I have no idea what my children actually do all day. But I’m happy to live in ignorance.’

Cooper took one last look at the old farmhouse, and the acres of windswept White Peak landscape that Massey had to himself.

‘What does ignorance of those things matter, when you’ve got the freedom of living out here?’

Chapter Thirteen

BACK AT THE scene on Longstone Moor, Fry had found officers from the task force plodding wearily back to the rendezvous point in their boiler suits at the conclusion of their fingertip search. She gathered from their complaints about sore backs and wet knees that the search had produced precious little else.

SOCOs were still working at the old huts and on Patrick Rawson’s Mitsubishi – she could see their van parked alongside the field barn, though the Mitsubishi itself was invisible from here. She ought to find a way over there to have a look at the car.

Now that the weather had cleared and the sun was out, there were flies everywhere, hovering over the sheep droppings, gathering in small clouds over the puddles of water under the hawthorn trees. Fry heard a whine near her ear, and swatted at it with a hand. Earlier, she’d opened her mouth and felt something tickle the back of her throat. She was pretty sure she’d swallowed a mosquito. They’d been everywhere during the previous summer and autumn, and some had even survived the winter.