‘DS Antoine is going to take some notes, as well as recording this on his phone. Is that okay with you both?’ Caroline asked.

Bob and Geoff nodded, neither of them having said a word since she’d suggested they sit down somewhere warm to chat.

On any other day, their position would’ve given them a superb view of the fishing boats going out, one every few seconds, as the vast expanse of Rutland Water opened up in front of them. Now, though, there was nothing. The boats remained moored up against the jetty, the water off limits for the foreseeable future.

‘Can you talk me through what happened this morning, please?’ Caroline asked, directing her question at Bob. ‘From the beginning.’

‘Well, we arrived here just before eight. That’s when it opens, see. We like to try and get a full day of it if we can. Not much else doing. Geoff picks me up about half seven and we come straight here.’

‘Did you come by car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you park?’

‘Right outside here, in the car park we just walked through.’

‘So you didn’t get a view of the church until you were out on the water?’

‘No, love. Not really. In any case, you’re hardly on the look out for dead bodies, are you? See the odd fish that’s carked it, if the birds haven’t already had it. That’s about it. Never a human.’

This struck Caroline as an odd way to describe the situation, but she let it fly. ‘So whereabouts were you when you first saw the body?’

‘Well, when we first saw it were a body, we was pretty much on top of it. But Geoff spotted there were something there.’

‘Where were you?’ Caroline asked again.

‘Out on the water.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Well, I dunno. Not many signposts out there, you know what I mean?’

Geoff cut in. ‘Probably about a third of the way to the Hambleton peninsula. In line with the fishing lodge, I’d say. We hadn’t headed in either direction at that point.’

‘So that’s, what, about three or four hundred metres from the church?’

Geoff shrugged. ‘If you say so. Close enough to see something out the ordinary, but far enough away not to know what it was.’

Caroline felt like she was spinning round in circles. ‘And you say you only realised it was a body when you were quite close?’

‘Yeah. Close as we could get without worrying about beaching it, anyway. Don’t tend to bother wearing our glasses out on the water, see. Not really a whole lot of point. Not unless we’re bird watching.’

‘And you didn’t recognise the person?’

‘Not from the back of his head, no.’

‘So what did you do?’