When she eventually plucked up the courage to abandon the comparative comfort of her car and crossed the threshold of the police station, her surroundings reminded her of nothing so much as her old comprehensive school in Chelmsford. Inside the waiting room, even the furniture looked as if it had been there since the day the place had been built. Mark Stone’s office, when she eventually got there, was spacious but overwhelmingly drab. The only feature of any note was a neatly aligned row of certificates detailing Stone’s apparently manifold achievements, which hung behind him on the wall.

The man himself, seated across his desk from her, looked tired and harassed. ‘Thanks for getting your colleague to send those radio carbon dates through.’ He proffered a smile. ‘I have to confess when I saw your television interview I was beginning to wonder whether I should have sent that SOCO team over to Bailsgrove last time we met.’

Was he teasing her? She couldn’t tell. Oh, hell. She could feel her cheeks reddening, and she hadn’t been in his office for more than a couple of minutes. ‘You needn’t have worried. I’ve never had cause to doubt Dr Granski’s professional judgement yet. Jo knows what she’s talking about.’

‘Well, thankfully that was certainly the case on this occasion, Mrs Hills. Now, when you spoke to the desk sergeant you said you had some information relating to Beth Kinsella’s death.’

It seemed they were definitely in ‘Mrs Hills’ not ‘Clare’ territory today. That wasn’t a good sign. Or was that just because of the gravity of the subject matter?

She took a deep breath. ‘That’s right. Do you remember Crabby?’

‘Crabby. Do you mean Wayne Crabbs?’ Clare nodded. ‘Yes. He found Beth Kinsella’s body. I interviewed him afterwards.’

‘Well, Crabby told me something yesterday. Something I think might be important. About Beth’s death.’

He leant forward attentively. ‘Go on.’

‘The day before she died, Beth told Crabby something.’

He asked, ‘What sort of something?’

‘She told him she’d found something that would prove that the site was an Iron Age temple.’

He leant back and crossed his arms. ‘Mrs Hills, if that’s what you came here to tell me I’m afraid that’s not news. Everyone I interviewed about Beth Kinsella said she’d told them the place was some sort of sacred site.’

Clare shook her head, unable to disguise her impatience. ‘No, you don’t understand. Crabby said that he was on-site with her the day before she died and Beth told him she had actually discovered something that would prove it. Something that would stop the houses being built.’

‘And do we have any idea what this something was that she’d supposedly discovered? Or where it is now?’