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My phone is ringing. I fumble for the handset. The digital clock glows in the darkened room.
‘Cyrus Haven?’ asks a voice.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry to call you so early.’
‘That’s OK.’
The constable sounds young, but I can hear the tiredness in his voice. ‘DI Carlson is sending a car to pick you up. It will arrive in fifteen minutes.’
‘Why?’
‘A body has been found in Willingham Woods in Lincolnshire.’
‘Is it the boy?’
‘I’m not sure, sir.’
I get dressed and try to sneak past Evie’s door, avoiding the squeaky step on the stairs. It doesn’t work. She appears on the landing. Her hair is sleep-tousled. A long T-shirt reaches past her knees. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Is this about Arben?’
‘It’s police business.’
I know that’s not a lie, but Evie sees something in my face and the gold flecks float in her eyes.
The car is waiting for me, engine idling. The female driver is a young detective, about my age. Her first name is Fiona. She has more details. Two ramblers stumbled upon the body of a teenage boy, partially covered by a blackberry bush and ferns, as they crossed a water-filled ditch in a woodland area with walking and cycling trails.
‘When?’
‘Just after seven.’
Rain is falling by the time we drive through the village of Market Rasen. Two miles east along the A631 we come to a side road that leads to a parking area and a small dour building that has toilets and a shuttered café. Visitors, braving the weather, are being turned away by officers in high-vis coats.
Fiona offers me an umbrella as we walk along a single-lane forestry road before turning off on a walking trail. The mud has already been churned up beneath the shoes of police and SOCO. Moving further into the woods, I smell the damp earth and rotting boles and the cavalcade of reeks made more pungent by the rain. The trail curves and descends. Getting nearer, we reach duckboards, arranged like stepping-stones across the wet ground. I glimpse a flashgun firing. Forensic teams dressed in light blue overalls are moving in and out of a white canvas tent. More awnings have been strung from the trees, trying to preserve trace evidence from being washed away.
I barely recognise Carlson when he appears from the tent. He’s wearing disposable overalls with the hood secured tightly around his face. His mere presence answers my first question. The body belongs to Arben Pasha.
‘How?’ I ask.
‘Ness won’t say without a post-mortem.’
He’s referring to Robert Ness, a senior Home Office pathologist.
‘Time of death?’ I ask.
‘Too soon to tell. His body was dumped overnight.’
I plot the sequence of events in my head. Arben must have been held somewhere for at least twenty-four hours.
‘Get him suited up,’ says Carlson.
Fiona takes me to a police four-wheel-drive vehicle and waits while I get changed. When I return to the main tent, the rain is heavier, running off the canvas, and being channelled into newly dug trenches. The tent flap opens. A camera flash blinds me momentarily.
Arben Pasha is lying on his back with his head tilted back. His eyes are open, as though watching people work around him. Leaves and grass cling to his hair. Mud is smeared on his left cheek. The flashgun pops again.
