‘Well, did she tell you where The Law was to be found?’ demanded his companion.

‘In Upper Borth, apparently, so we’ll have to walk on a fair way yet.’

Louise groaned. ‘It’s even difficult to report a murder in this place.’

Ten minutes later, after Geraint’s longing glances into a fish-and-chip shop were ignored, they reached Borth’s answer to Scotland Yard. This was a small annexe built on to the side of a police house, where a sergeant and a constable of the Cardiganshire Constabulary sat at a table behind a wooden counter.

Sergeant Edwards, a large man with a bushy moustache, left his cup of Nescafe and came to attend to them. Louise dumped her haversack on the counter and explained who she was, ignoring Geraint, who was content to sit on a hard chair near the door to listen to the rumbles of his empty stomach. After listening to the botanist’s story about her unexpected find, the officer regarded her gravely. She seemed a sensible sort of young woman, he thought, not one given to making up fairy stories.

‘Have you got this specimen with you, miss?’

Louise fished in the bag and took out the small bottle containing the lower part of the core.

‘This is it. There’s a piece of cord in there as well. I’ve read about a number of these bog bodies. They’ve been found mainly in Denmark and Germany in recent years, but there have been reports of them for centuries, some in Britain.’

The constable, a fresh-faced young man with big ears, ambled over to the counter to look at the sample. ‘Yes, sarge, I’ve read about those. There was an article in Reader’s Digest some time ago. Some horrible pictures of them, all shrivelled up and looking like leather.’

Sergeant Edwards ran his fingers across his moustache as an aid to thought. If even his constable had heard of this phenomenon, then he could hardly dismiss it out of hand.

‘You found this just by drilling a hole in the ground?’