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serving after hours. Up here they seem to think the law doesn’t apply.’
    The sergeant peered through the windscreen of the van at the bleak surroundings. ‘You can see what they mean, can’t you? It seems a lawless sort of place.’
    Mike tightened his lips. ‘Nowhere is outside the law. The DI wants to know – have you found anything?’
    The sergeant shook his head. ‘Hardly anything, sir. A couple of burnt-out matches, a plastic bottle that smelt of petrol. That’s been bagged. Those plastic bottles can be quite good at holding prints. That is, if he didn’t wear gloves.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Plenty of used Durexes. We didn’t find any recent tyre marks near here – and that is puzzling us. Am I right in thinking he was murdered elsewhere?’
    Mike frowned. ‘We can’t be absolutely sure. I’ll have to talk to DI Piercy about it. I do know from observation that the soles of his shoes looked clean. We don’t think he walked here. As soon as we get the forensic report in writing we’ll let you have it.’
    â€˜Did you get a lead on the shoes yet, sir?’
    Mike shook his head. ‘Haven’t had a chance to speak to anyone about that yet,’ he said. ‘I was anxious to see whether you’d found anything.’
    The sergeant gave him a quick look. ‘We’d feel a lot happier if we knew who he was and how the hell he got up here.’ He sighed. ‘We haven’t found any tyre tracks that look recent and the ground’s soft. You’d have thought a car would have skidded ... maybe got stuck. We’ve got the soil samples. But ...’ he paused, ‘we could almost think he was dropped from above. We can’t see how he got here. It doesn’t make sense, sir and it’s nearly half a mile from the road. Carrying a dead body would have weighed him down.’
    Mike frowned and scratched his head. Then together the two policemen climbed the hill towards the point where pink plastic tape was marking an area. He looked down at the scorched, flattened grass, a short length, not much more than four feet. In a long line, stretching right across the hillside, the police were hunting for something – anything that would lead them to the ... he voiced the word ‘Bastard’... who had done this to the kid he had seen lying with a pale face in the damp heather. Mike had a healthy, policeman’s dislike of the criminal, and as though in answer a sheet of heavy, grey rain suddenly blotted out the sky and thundered on to the moor.

Chapter Five
    Alice sat at the edge of the cave early that morning, watching the figures in their clean white overalls as they combed the moist heather and scrub. She wrapped her topcoat around her and fastened it with the piece of string. The moors would yield little to their unpractised eyes. Only she and Jonathan were able to read the signs. She shifted a little; the wind was biting this morning. She pulled the scarf over her face. In the gloom of the dull day she looked like a huge, immobile scarecrow. The boy had already been dead when he was brought to his torching. Alice, Queen of the Roaches, held her hand over her eyes to shield a sudden glare – a hole in the low clouds and a silver streak of sunshine as though the Lord was offering a silver pathway for the boy’s soul to climb heavenwards. She turned to Jonathan. ‘I never seen so many people up here,’ she said. ‘It’s been a bad thing, the child being put here.’ Her voice took on a grumbling, self-pitying tone. ‘It’s took our privacy.’
    Jonathan too was crouched in the entrance to the cave. ‘They’ll be gone,’ he said, but Alice was not to be consoled.
    â€˜And then the trippers will start,’ she said. ‘Lookin’ to see where the boy lay.’
    He too watched the men in their white suits hunt the ground. ‘Maybe you should tell