‘What have you got?’

‘Not sure yet. Wait a minute.’ Vicki continued her fingertip search and crouched again to slide a scrap into a different bag.

Willow was wearing overshoes, but she waited where she was until Vicki called to her. Here they were close to the edge of the cliff and the noise of breaking waves and the onshore breeze were suddenly exhilarating. There was sea pink and blue squill. Vicki laid the bags on the palm of her hand so that Willow could look inside.

‘Torn scraps of paper.’ Willow was disappointed. ‘Could be anything.’

‘Not ordinary litter,’ Vicki said. ‘Not sweet paper or crisp packet. And anyway, why tear them into pieces?’

‘What then?’

‘It’s stiff, shiny. My guess is it was a photo.’

Willow thought about that. Who printed out photos these days? People took digital pictures and then posted them on Facebook or Twitter. ‘So somebody up here tore up a photo. A fit of rage perhaps? It would be good if we could find the rest of it.’

Vicki laughed. ‘With this breeze the rest will be halfway to Norway by now. These pieces were caught in the longer grass.’

Close to the cliff edge, stones – round and smoothed by the water – had been thrown up by violent storms. Some were as big as a small child, too heavy almost for a man to lift, yet during gales the tide had tossed them like marbles from the shore below. ‘One of those could be your murder weapon.’ Vicki stretched her hands above her head and then rubbed her aching back. ‘Though if I was the killer I’d have thrown it back over the cliff, once I was done.’

‘Not premeditated then.’ Willow was talking almost to herself. ‘The killer didn’t bring a weapon with them.’

‘Unless they knew these rocks were here and arranged the meeting. And the victim would have been walking away. Or turned away. This wasn’t self-defence or a scrap that got out of hand.’

Willow couldn’t imagine the immaculate Eleanor in a catfight. ‘Would there have been blood on the killer’s clothing? We’ve bagged what her friends were wearing that night and sent it south. No results yet.’

‘Not from the original blow perhaps, but it’d be hard to avoid it if you were dragging the body and then arranging it.’ Vicki frowned. ‘I’ll collect some samples of heather. I’d hope to find small traces of blood on the grass too, especially if the killer dragged Eleanor by her feet, in the hope of keeping themselves clean. And you’d expect the shoes and socks to be wet. You couldn’t place the body so accurately without getting into the loch.’

‘Unless the killer went barefoot too.’ Willow paused. ‘Sandy did a quick search of the area yesterday.’

Vicki snorted. ‘Have you ever known a man search properly for anything? My husband’s hopeless. A quick look then it’s “Vicki, what have you done with my football kit?” and, like a mug, I find it for him because it’s easier than getting him to do it for himself.’