‘Here’s the road and here’s what’s left of the boundary fence,’ he indicated lines on the paper, ‘and the foundations for the carousel are here… This is where the human remains were found.’ He indicated an area. John’s head was lowered, concentrating on the little dog.

‘Mr Morahan?’

‘That there was part of the gardens,’ said John Morahan, apparently without even looking at the paper. ‘A flowerbed.’

‘And can you remember what was planted there at the time Alice Lang went missing?’

‘Roses, delphiniums, sweet william.’

‘And who looked after the gardens?’

‘I did,’ said John gruffly, speaking into his lap.

‘By yourself?’

‘I had help.’

‘Can you tell us who?’

‘Will Jones. He helped when he wasn’t studying. You’d have to ask Mr deVillars who else. He’ll have all the records of who was employed and when.’

‘So… in late August, at the time of Alice’s disappearance, what would have been happening in this flowerbed?’

‘The Michaelmas daisies were getting ready to bloom. The lilies were good. Roses were still going. Zinnias.’

Dahlias, thought Marnie.

‘Dahlias,’ said her father. ‘It was a good year for dahlias; a dry summer. We had to keep watering.’

‘So you’d have noticed if anyone had disturbed the flowerbeds?’

‘I’d have noticed.’

‘But would anyone have noticed if you had changed things around?’

‘Of course they bloody would have! You can’t go digging up established plants in the middle of summer. For one thing the ground was solid, parched. It was like rock. And…’ he trailed off, remembering something. ‘The willow. We took out the willow that summer.’ He sat up straighter, tapped his fingertips on his knee. ‘There was an old willow hanging over the pond. It had died; couple of dry summers had finished it off and we took it out.’

Marnie remembered now. There had been a digger…

‘We hired in a mini-digger,’ John said, ‘for a couple of days to dig out the roots. They were invasive, damaging the path on the other side of the fence.’

‘So, there was a hole already dug?’

‘A bloody huge hole. We’d started filling it in. We’d covered the base with rubble and then ordered in some topsoil for over. We’d bought an ornamental cherry to replace the willow…’

‘So someone could have used the digger to clear the rubble and hide a body beneath it and then push the rubble back?’

John nodded.

‘Was the hole obvious?’

‘Only if you knew it was there. It was at the back, behind the flowers. If you didn’t know the willow used to be there, you wouldn’t have known about the hole.’

‘So the holidaymakers, for example, wouldn’t have been aware of it?’

‘No.’

‘But staff at the holiday park would have?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this area, was it far enough away from the caravans for activity to have taken place at night without disturbing the campers?’