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had led to the discovery of Bosworth’s body. The rest, including the apparent ring-leader, Clive Overton, had returned to college to sleep it off. Arnold remembered Clive Overton in particular. His father, Miles Overton QC, was a leading figure at the Bar. Arnold had been the victim of his powers of cross-examination earlier in his career. Arnold had these young men all ready to appear before the magistrates at 10 o’clock that same morning. As far as he was concerned, they were all bang to rights for manslaughter, if not murder.
    But at that point, something very odd had happened. The Master of the college had appeared at court; Arnold had been instructed to limit the charge to assault, occasioning actual bodily harm; the accused had been granted bail; and within a day or two he had been told, politely but firmly, by someone very high up, that the matter would go no further. Not long after that, Arnold was promoted to the rank of detective superintendent, a rank for which there was no obvious vacancy at the time. His regular detective sergeant, Ted Phillips, who had been at his side on that fateful evening, was promoted to detective inspector. Since then, they had continued to work together, much as before. Arnold had heard that, after spending some time in America, Clive Overton was on his way to becoming a barrister. Perhaps he would cross-examine Arnold one day. All very strange, but there it was. Nothing to be done but to keep working the cases. And this one was going to take some work.
    Arnold’s reflections were interrupted by Phillips and Willis, who had just returned to the station together. Arnold looked up inquiringly.
    â€˜Nothing so far, sir,’ Phillips said. ‘Forensic are working on the boat. It’s going to take them some time. We’ve got two frogmen in the water looking for a murder weapon, just in case the murderer chucked it overboard. It’s not going to be easy to find, even assuming it’s there. It might have drifted downstream a bit, and the water is very murky. We have some of our lads searching the immediate area around the boat. If that doesn’t turn something up we may have to start working the whole fen. We will need some serious local help with that.’
    â€˜Anything on Jennifer Doyce?’
    â€˜No. She’s still unconscious, and nobody’s putting money on her waking up again.’
    â€˜You haven’t seen Hawthorne, have you, sir?’ Willis asked.
    â€˜No.’
    Willis shook his head. ‘That’s young coppers for you these days. Never here when you need them.’
    Arnold smiled.
    â€˜I’ve been thinking about where we go from here’ he said. ‘I want leaflets asking for information distributed in every town and village within a radius of 20 miles. The local stations can help us with that while we continue inquiries here’.
    â€˜You want to limit it to 20 miles? You reckon he’s definitely local, do you, sir?’ Phillips asked. He sounded surprised.
    Arnold’s mind took him back to the Rosemary D . The extraordinary frenzied level of violence, the horrific injuries, the quantity of blood at the scene, the sheer brutality of it all. This had been about the boat and about those who visited her. He nodded.
    â€˜I’m certain of it.’ He turned to Willis. ‘We need to speak to as many of the young couples who were using the boat as possible. Do you have any information at all about them?’
    â€˜No names. We know it’s been going on for a while. We’ve been up there and banged on the door once or twice, to discourage it. But we don’t have the manpower to do more than that. Besides, trespass is a civil matter, sir, as you know. We wouldn’t go in unless we had information that an offence was being committed, and even then I would have to get a warrant. I could make a few inquiries, put the word around.’ He paused. ‘Of course, sir, they may be a bit