Angela looked simultaneously appalled and self-important. ‘Yes, until we’re told otherwise,’ she whispered. ‘The … ah … body, has been discovered in an area of the grounds that’s currently private. No member of the public has any sort of access to it, because the pond’s been cordoned off, awaiting restoration. Security is guarding the site.’

Emad straightened his hat. ‘I see. Well, you may shortly have to stop admitting visitors. It could all be a bit of a three-ring circus here soon, I’m afraid. Does the person who called us…’ He took out his notebook to check the woman’s name, feeling unprofessional that he hadn’t remembered it, or checked before going in.

‘Meredith Vincent,’ said Angela. ‘She’s our shop manager. She was out there having her lunch next to Cherub Pond and she found … it.’

‘Does Ms Vincent know the identity of the body?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t say. She just called me to say you were on your way … I thought there’d be more of you. Nothing like this has ever happened here before!’

Angela Carruthers looked out at the tourists, jostling impatiently outside the glass doors, trying to eavesdrop. ‘The trouble is,’ she said, stricken, ‘if you wanted us to close, I’d need to run it past my boss, Ralph Allerton. And he’s been missing for the last week.’

‘You don’t need to run it past anyone,’ Emad said, more firmly than he felt. ‘Shall we?’

Angela Carruthers now had an expression of mingled confusion and horror on her face, and wrung her hands with a dry scraping sound, clutching them to her ample bosom, a thought seeming to occur to her. ‘I’m just really worried that … that it’s Ralph in the pond.’

Emad gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘Please do just point me in the right direction, Mrs Carruthers, but stay at your desk. Someone will give you further instructions in due course, but for now you can carry on selling admission tickets. And when my colleague arrives, direct him to us, please.’

He hoped they were doing the right thing. If Dark Mavis – as he’d learned to call DS Mark Davis, who Emad had been delighted to discover happened to be Gemma’s immediate superior – pitched up and immediately demanded the house be closed to the public, or even evacuated, they would look really stupid.

Angela took them out of another door to a lawned area studded with shady horse chestnut trees. An open-sided tourist bus – more like a large cart with rows of seats in it – waited to ferry tourists around the grounds, its driver slouched over the wheel. He looked to be in his mid-forties, yet he had startlingly bushy grey facial hair. He was staring into space, caressing his beard as if it was a beloved pet.

‘It’s about a five-minute walk through the cottage gardens,’ she said, ‘or you can ask Henry there to drive you.’