‘Could it be an accident or a natural death?’ asked Moira, pouring Brooke Bond into the cups from a large brown pot.

‘Could be, I suppose. But when, that’s the question? It was about three feet down and it takes a long time for that thickness of peat to accumulate if the deceased just fell on to the surface.’

‘Someone would have seen him then,’ objected the ever-practical Sian. ‘Someone must have dug a hole to put him in.’

Priscilla looked doubtful. She had plenty of experience of holes in the ground from her work as an archaeologist.

‘You can’t be certain about that. Bogs change all the time and there may have been a pool there at the time he was dumped, which would have put him in deeper.’

‘We’re saying “he”,’ said Angela. ‘It could be a woman.’

‘True enough, replied Richard, taking one of Moira’s Welsh cakes. ‘But what about this bit of string, Priscilla?’

She had been cast as the expert on ancient bodies, with her qualifications as an anthropologist.

‘Some of the other bog people were found either with their throats cut or with a ligature, presumably having been strangled,’ she replied. ‘But I think Richard’s right, we won’t know until it’s dug up!

THREE

After he had the phone call from Garth House, Meirion Thomas knew he was in for a busy time. He was a detective inspector in Aberystwyth, the only one that the rural county police force possessed. It effectively made him the head of the CID, commanding a couple of sergeants and a few detective constables.

Though covering a large area, it was sparsely populated, except in the summer, when holidaymakers flocked to the beautiful coast and mountains. Meirion’s usual diet of criminal investigations consisted of housebreaking, theft of outboard motors and sheep stealing. To have a buried corpse was indeed a novelty.