He heard Mark take a slurp of coffee. ‘Hm. Nah. Not if it’s definitely hidden from sight. Think it’d be too much of a palaver. So is it definitely him?’

‘Seems like it. His name was Ralph Allerton. Found and ID’d by Minstead’s gift-shop manager, Meredith Vincent. He’s been in there a while. She saw him on the day he went AWOL; says he was pissed but in good spirits. Looks like he probably just fell in and drowned.’

‘Sounds like that, yeah. I’ll look up the MISPER report, hold on…’

Emad heard Mavis tap at his computer keyboard.

‘Right. Yup. His missus says the same. He wasn’t depressed or worried about anything – going missing was completely out of character. Liked a drink, etc, etc. Pretty obvious what’s happened, as you say. I’ll get everyone down there. Make sure you seal it off.’

‘OK Sarge,’ Emad said. ‘Right you are. See you shortly.’

He returned to the stone bench, where Damian was already cordoning off the pond, unscrolling a roll of police tape and wrapping it around the leg of the bench, then tree trunks nearby.

Meredith was now fanning herself with the brim of the baseball cap. She’d stopped crying but was staring wildly at Emad.

‘What happened to him? How did he get in there? It’s just not … possible.’

Emad grimaced sympathetically. ‘I know, it seems so hard to believe he’d have just fallen in and not been able to get out again. The water must be so shallow. But I suppose if he was that drunk, he might have hit his head on the side or something … we’ll know when the post-mortem comes back.’

Meredith flinched and something caught Emad’s eye. He tried not to stare, but couldn’t help his eyes being drawn back to it: the big, puckered purply-black hole in the back of Meredith’s hand, the one she was fanning herself with. She must have noticed him looking, because she hastily transferred the cap to her other hand and put the scarred one down on the bench slightly behind her, trying to hide it. Perhaps that was why she wore the rings on her other hand, he thought, to pull attention away from her left.

‘You OK to sit there for a few minutes, till our scene-of-crime officers and the paramedics arrive? I’ll take a statement once they do.’

She nodded, staring at her lap.

Emad started walking around the pond, checking the ground for anything unusual. The pond had stone edges, around which was a scrubby, balding lawn, some weed-choked flowerbeds, and the gravel path leading from the greenhouses. The soil was pretty dry after several weeks with little rain, but at the corner of path and lawn, Emad stopped and stared at a noticeable indentation.