‘Then stay until the end of this month, at least,’ suggested Angela and, without more persuasion, her friend agreed to remain for a couple more weeks.

When their business discussions were done, Richard told Angela of current cases and especially the odd request he had had from Cardiganshire about the alleged ‘bog body’. Like Priscilla, his partner knew quite a lot about the finds reported in Denmark and elsewhere, which were obviously of considerable interest to all forensic biologists.

‘Let’s see tomorrow whether it’s a sheep or King Arthur!’ said Angela, happy to be back in harness herself.

The tests next day confirmed that it was not a sheep and, at a stretch, it could be King Arthur, for at least it was human.

At about ten o’clock next morning, a Triumph motorcycle roared up to the house and a helmeted police officer handed over a small package in return for a signature on his exhibit docket. Richard was due to go down to Chepstow to carry out a couple of routine post-mortems for the coroner at the public mortuary there, but he could not resist waiting to have a look at the specimen. The others crowded around, even Moira, who left her typewriter to have a look at such a curious sample.

Richard took the small glass bottle from the plywood box that protected it and found a sheet of paper wrapped around it. It was a note on Home Office letter-heading from Philip Rees, one of the forensic scientists at the Cardiff laboratory, whom they had met in a case a month or so earlier.

‘It just says that they did a precipitin test and it was unequivocally human tissue,’ he announced. ‘He also says there’s a small piece of cord as well, but they did nothing with that, as they were only asked to carry out a species identification.’