‘Yer ’tis, I reckon there’s more under the surface,’ he prophesied, poking at a brown object with a piece of twig. The inspector and the coroner’s officer squatted one each side of him, staring down at the thing projecting from a drift of last autumn’s leaves.

‘The lad came over here for a pee,’ explained the foreman. ‘Then he called us to have a look.’

He beckoned to the young labourer, who reluctantly came nearer.

‘I thought it was some old dead sheep, but when I kicked at it, it looked different,’ he muttered.

The foreman gave it another prod with his stick. ‘I used to work in an abattoir, so I know what the top end of a thigh bone looks like. But this ain’t no cow nor sheep – it’s yooman!’

The inspector took the twig from him and carefully scraped away some of the damp leaf mould from around the knob which projected above the surface, revealing a discoloured bone that went down into the soil.

Then he looked up and spoke to the coroner’s officer.

‘John, what d’you want to do about this? Call in CID or deal with it like a sudden death?’

Christie was a calm, avuncular man who looked and dressed like a prosperous farmer. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘Better tell the DI, I suppose. Let him have a look at it and then get the remains taken to the County Hospital in Hereford. They can deal with them there, unless anything naughty turns up and we have to call in the Home Office chap.’

He turned to the Water Board foreman. ‘Don’t touch anything, and make sure nobody else comes near until we get another officer up here.’

Reynolds nodded, glad of an excuse to postpone working for another hour or so. The two policemen went back to their car, where the inspector radioed to get a local constable to stand guard until the CID appeared. Then with a wave to the workers, he made a cautious three-point turn on the concrete and vanished in the direction of Monmouth.