She took another sip of her lassi before answering. ‘Nope. From the little they said when it happened I’d say it’s not when but if.’

David knew when he was on a hiding to nothing. ‘Tell you what, next time you get a free evening I’ll cook for you. Three courses, all your favourites.’

Sally pushed the last remaining sherd of poppadom around her plate. ‘I won’t be much fun. I’ll probably just want to sleep.’

‘Well, first you can eat and then you can sleep. Absolutely no fun required.’

Finally, she looked up at him and smiled. ‘OK. You’ve got a deal. Mind you, I can’t promise when it’ll be.’ David reached out and touched her arm. This time Sally reciprocated and placed her hand on his. ‘Thank you.’

By the time David was digging into his lamb bhuna, Sally seemed to have regained a little of her old energy.

She dabbed her lips with her napkin. ‘Oh, I meant to say, I had a word with an old mate of mine from the Gloucestershire force about that Beth Kinsella business.’

David looked up. ‘What did they say?’

‘By the sound of it, for once things were pretty much like they said in the papers. The Kinsella woman seems to have been having a bit of a rough time of it. Lost her job. Split up with her boyfriend. Then when she began work at Bailsgrove she started making all sorts of claims about the place having been some sort of ancient temple. By all accounts the developer paying her wages didn’t take too kindly to the interest that drummed up in the papers.’

‘Paul Marshall.’

Sally nodded. ‘That’s right. He threatened not to pay her if she went to the media again. But by the sound of it he needn’t have worried. By then they’d lost interest anyway because everybody else they spoke to seems to have reckoned there was nothing there to find. So he calmed down a bit. Next thing you know a bunch of crystal danglers find her hanging from a tree in the woods above the site. There were all sorts of wooden carvings smeared with animal blood strung up from the branches. And there was this dead hare with its guts splattered all round the place. Mark said it was really spooky stuff.’

David said, ‘Mark …?’

‘Sorry, Mark Stone, he’s a DCI up there. I met him when I was doing my probation. He’s a bit of a high-flyer. He’s alright, though. Not one of the corporate bullshit brigade.’

David just nodded. There was no need to mention she wasn’t the only woman he’d spoken to recently who apparently had a high opinion of DCI Stone. It seemed his life was destined to be full of unfortunate coincidences.