‘Yes, yes.’

Mullett was struck again by the sense of familiarity. Where the blazes had he seen him before? Wait, was it …

‘Yes, I thought it was you,’ said Simpson in a low voice. ‘Although, we haven’t seen you square …’

‘Square?’ Of course, the Lodge. George Simpson was a Freemason. That would explain the score of town dignitaries at the funeral. Having made the link, Mullett was anxious to ingratiate himself further, but before he had the chance the crimson face of Desk Sergeant Bill Wells appeared at his shoulder. Damn. To Mullett’s extreme vexation the Master slipped away.

‘Fine woman, Mary Frost,’ Wells said as the superintendent watched Simpson top up the drinks of various guests, all of whom seemed to give him a knowing glance.

‘I can’t say I knew her,’ Mullett remarked. ‘I thought they …’ he began but then curbed his intended comment on the state of the Frosts’ marriage, sensing it might seem inappropriate, and instead said, ‘She was clearly well loved – there’s quite a few here.’

‘Yes,’ Wells concurred. ‘Good family, too. I bet the mother was a looker in her time.’

Mullett glanced again at Beryl Simpson and found himself nodding in agreement; she was trim, attractive even, and clearly took care of herself. Perhaps the coloured hair was in a style too young for her years, but it was a minor blot on what was overall a fine example of the mature English rose. Bitterly he downed his schooner of sherry. How on earth Frost had managed to worm his way into such a superior family was a mystery, and, of course, staggeringly unfair. But now death had broken the connection, and he regarded it almost as an act of poetic justice.

Thursday (2)

Nev Sanderson pointed authoritatively with a large wooden stick. ‘That there is a foot.’

‘Yes, Mr Sanderson,’ said DC Clarke as she winced, ‘I’m inclined to agree.’

She took a tentative step forward, her feet sticking in the mud.

‘Do you think you could get your dog away? It won’t help the lab if the’ – what was the right word? It couldn’t really be classed as a corpse – ‘object is drenched in dog saliva.’

The Border collie snuffled enthusiastically around the pasty limb as though contemplating taking a bite.

‘Fenton, here, boy,’ the farmer said half-heartedly. He was swigging from an unmarked bottle she took to contain some form of scrumpy. He certainly had the complexion to match. The dog continued to sniff the prominent big toe. Sanderson leaned on his stick and smirked.

‘Constable, remove the dog,’ ordered Clarke. She was tired and had no patience for the farmer’s lack of respect. Ridley moved to grab it, but at Sanderson’s slap of his thigh the dog came to heel.

‘Ah,’ Clarke said with some dismay, looking across the field at the SOCOs trudging in the distance and what was likely to be Maltby. Not used to being first on the scene, she desperately needed to make some useful observation before Forensics arrived and disturbed the crime scene irrevocably. Frost always lectured everyone on how important these early moments were, although he qualified this by his own admission that he himself was seldom first anywhere.

‘When did you first see the foot?’

‘I see it from tractor o’er there,’ he said, pointing to the becalmed machine twenty yards away.

‘How? You must have pretty incredible eyesight to have spotted it from that distance.’ Clarke frowned.

‘It were the birds. The gulls. They were fighting over it.’

‘I see. So you didn’t unearth it, then? You’re saying it was sitting on the surface?’

‘I guess so.’ He shrugged, his attention now drawn to the approaching entourage.

Perhaps it was left here last night, she thought. But, why here? And where was the rest of the body – dead or alive?

‘Wait a minute. You said “gulls”. But we’re at least seventy miles from the coast.