WHEN DI Annie Cabbot and DC Geraldine Masterson arrived on the scene around half past nine that Wednesday morning, the whole eight miles of Bradham Lane were already sealed off from where it began at a T junction two miles west of Eastvale to where it ended beside a bridge over the River Ure.

“It would be bloody miles from nowhere,” said Annie. “We’ll have to get a mobile unit out here and find the bodies to man it. And we’ll have to run the Major Incident Room from HQ. There’s not enough facilities out here.”

The uniformed constable standing by the police tape bent to talk to them. “There’s an officer and a patrol car down by the bridge at the far end, and two officers at the scene,” she said, then pointed. “The crime scene is three miles down there.”

“Thanks,” said Annie. “As long as we don’t have to walk.”

“It’s a hard road surface, ma’am,” said the officer. “And a rough one at that. Not much chance of tire tracks, but you never know what the CSIs might find. I’d go carefully.”

“We will. I know those CSIs.”

The patrol officer untied the tape at one end, and Gerry drove slowly along the narrow road.

Annie was intrigued by the shapes of the trees. Some seemed dead and stunted, standing there like men doing handstands, or the twisted and darkened shapes of burned bodies in a pugilistic stance. Others made a dazzling symphony of green in the breeze after last week’s rains, leaves glistening and dancing in the morning sun. The road meandered, and on a couple of occasions, there were narrow unsurfaced lanes leading off, signposted to villages or farms Annie had never heard of. It would be easy to get lost if you took a wrong turn, she thought. Here and there was a passing place in case you met someone coming the other way.

The first sign that they were close to their destination was a patrol car blocking the road ahead and a cyclist in bright purple Lycra leaning against the hood, head in his hands. A female PC stood next to him, notebook in her hand. A male officer, also making notes, sat in the car. The sleek bicycle leaned against the drystone wall. Annie bet it weighed about two ounces, cost a fortune and went like the clappers. So many cyclists had been inspired by the Tour de France’s Grand Départ in Yorkshire that you could hardly move for them on the roads these days. Some of them looked quite fit in their Lycra, too, Annie thought, though not this one. He needed a few more thousand miles on his speedometer to get up to snuff.

“This is Mr. Roger Stanford,” said the PC. Then she gestured toward the misshapen bundle lying in a cordoned-off area several yards farther along the road. “He found the . . . er . . . her.”