Wayne Abbott was standing in front of her, a quizzical expression on his face.

‘Yes, Wayne?’

‘I wanted to update you.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry. What have you got?’

‘Well, first of all, there’s no sign of anything that could have been used as a murder weapon – no bloodstained stones, or anything of that kind. But we’ve been working on the blood splatter, specifically traces of blood in the soil where the hoof marks are. The indications are that some of the impressions were made before the blood traces. You can see that the pattern of spatter is intact in those areas.’

As close as Fry peered at the ground beneath the evidence markers, she couldn’t make out the tiny flecks of blood against the soil.

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Over here, however,’ said Abbott, ‘we can see that the hoof marks came after the injury. The pattern of spatter is completely broken up, some traces of blood have been pushed deep into the ground by the weight of the impressions.’

Fry straightened. ‘So the horses were definitely here before and after the victim’s injury. That would suggest they were present during the fatal attack.’

‘It might be a reasonable conclusion,’ said Abbott. ‘Also . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘Assuming for a moment that your killer or killers did arrive on horseback, we think we’ve managed to identify their approach route. They came across the neighbouring field over there, lower down the hill. The hoof marks are still distinct. There’s a crop of some kind planted in that field, so there’s bare soil, rather than this coarse grass.’

‘And what about the victim?’ asked Fry.

‘A little more difficult. But our best assessment is that he came direct from the location of his vehicle, which, as you know, was parked over by the old barn there. There’s a stile he could have come over. We’re examining that now, but it’s about fifty yards from the car. He might actually have come over the wall. In any case, he then went into the derelict hut.’

‘To try to get away from his assailants?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘And from there . . . ?’

‘He came straight across this field. And he was running, which makes the shoe impressions smaller, but deeper. Because of the rain, not all the impressions are intact, but we’ve pieced together enough to be fairly confident.’

Fry was starting to form a picture in her mind now. The scenario was coming to life, the details filling themselves in. She could imagine Patrick Rawson easing the Mitsubishi slowly up the track to the field barn that morning and parking his car out of sight. Why had he done that? Because he was involved in a secret assignation? Or to surprise someone who didn’t expect him to be there?