On the photograph of the grave taken in summer, the epitaph was there. But on the rain-slick shot, it was missing.

The old photographer smiled, and he didn’t need to look at the words to recite them. ‘“Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware of giving your heart to a dog to tear.” Well, they could hardly put that on the original grave, now could they?’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the grave is nearly five hundred years old,’ he said. ‘But those words were written in the early twentieth century by Rudyard Kipling. By my time the grave was literally falling to bits. Collapsing in on itself.’

Wren said, ‘Do you have any pictures?’

He looked doubtful but eventually found one image of a small yellow bulldozer parked next to the cracked tomb. You could clearly make out the name of the company on the side: V. J. Khan & Sons.

‘The grave was always unmarked,’ Monty said. ‘Or at least the inscription had worn clean away. I never saw anything on it. It’s five hundred years old, remember. But when they restored it, he added the words from Kipling.’

‘Who did?’ Wren said.

‘The Head Master,’ he said, sipping his single malt. ‘Mr Waugh said he didn’t want to leave the grave unmarked.’

Chapter 29

29

I LEFT WREN tucking into cheese on toast with Monty, his wife and their Golden Retriever and drove the pool car to Potter’s Field. The school seemed shut up and silent already but the main gates were open and I left the Hyundai in the staff car park. I could make out a figure moving around in the twilight of the playing fields and I was starting towards him when I heard the sound of the first shot.

A large-gauge gun, some distance away, the shot seeming to contain its own echo. And then there was silence and I started off again towards the playing fields, the buildings looking so lifeless that you would never guess they contained one thousand souls.

The old caretaker, Len Zukov, was moving slowly along a rugby pitch with what looked like a lawnmower. It was only when I got closer that I saw he was leaving a long straight white line in his wake as he marked out a touchline.

I called out a greeting, raising my hand.

‘Don’t step on that!’ he replied. ‘Still wet!’

‘Remember me? DC Wolfe from West End Central.’

I was reaching for my warrant card. But he couldn’t have cared less about my warrant card.

‘I remember you.’

‘I’m just following up a few details of our ongoing investigation.’

But he wasn’t interested. He was already moving off, his machine drowning my words, the straight white line trailing behind him.

‘Don’t step on my lines,’ he shouted over his shoulder, a man accustomed to bawling at generations of boys. ‘Got to get this done before dark.’