Annie asked Peter Darby and one of the CSIs if they had also finished with the body, and they said they had. She had a raincoat in the back of the car—always a sensible precaution in Yorkshire—and while they waited for the coroner’s van, she took it out and spread it gently over the girl’s body. For some reason she didn’t want the girl’s nakedness on display, even though everyone at the scene was a professional. Gerry still seemed especially pale and shaken by the sight.

“Excuse me for asking,” said Annie. “I realize I should know, but I can’t remember. Is this your first murder victim?”

Gerry offered a weak smile. “You usually keep me in the squad room chained to the computer.”

“If you want to talk, or anything . . . As long as there’s a large glass of wine in it for me.”

“Thanks, guv.” Gerry straightened her back and stuck her long pre-Raphaelite locks behind her ears. “What next?”

“We wait. Stefan’s gang are good, but they take their time. I think whatever happens, high-profile case or not, Alan’s going to find himself senior investigating officer on this one, so we’ll report to him when we get back to the station. First priority is to figure out who she is. We’ll need to start checking on missing persons as soon as possible, and see how soon we can draft in a forensic odontologist to get working on dental records. We also need an artist’s impression. From what I could tell, her face is too badly disfigured for a useful photo ID. We’ll check with local schools, even though they’re on holiday. Social services. What’s your gut feeling on this?”

“I think we need to know whether she was dumped or killed here, for a start.”

“It seems a good out-of-the-way place to dump a body,” Annie said. “Or even to kill someone. We should talk to whoever lives in that farmhouse over there.”

“Ladies!”

Annie turned around to the source of the voice. It was Stefan Nowak about a couple of hundred yards up the road. “If you’d care to come here,” he said, “I think we might have something interesting for you.”

“I STILL find it hard to understand how a fourteen-year-old girl could be sexually assaulted in front of a witness and nothing was done,” said DS Winsome Jackman, as she parked the police Skoda in the tiny, charming village of Minton-on-Swain. “She did report it at the time, you say?”

“She says she did,” said Banks. “Different times. Didn’t you follow the Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris cases?”