Hands shaking, Ruth reaches for her phone. Please God don’t let her have left it in the car. No, it’s here. She dials 999 and asks for an ambulance. She goes completely blank when asked for the address and can only bleat, ‘The Smith Museum. Please hurry!’ The voice on the other end of the phone is calm and reassuring, even slightly bored. ‘A unit is on its way.’ Ruth bends her head close to Neil’s mouth. She can’t hear or feel any breathing. But when she puts her hand inside his shirt there is a heartbeat, very faint and unsteady, but unmistakably there. Hang on in there, Neil, she tells him. Should she move the body? But all the books tell you not to. She looks desperately round the room. The bishop’s coffin looms above them, dark and sinister. There is nothing else in the room apart from a glass display case in the corner and, by the window, a man’s single shoe.

What can have happened to Neil? Did he have a heart attack or a stroke? But he’s a young man. Young men don’t just fall down and die. It is only now that Ruth realises that what happened to Neil might not be due to natural causes. She looks around the room again. The pages of the book are still fluttering to and fro. From the open window she can hear traffic, the faint shouts of children in the park. Why is the window open anyway?

With shaking hands, Ruth reaches for her phone and calls the police.

‘It’s the Smith museum, boss.’

‘What?’

DCI Nelson is driving and his sergeant, DS Clough, is on the phone. This is a reversal of the normal order, it’s usually the junior officer who drives, but Nelson hates being a passenger. At this latest news, Nelson turns to look at Clough and the car swerves across the traffic, narrowly missing a motorbike and an invalid car. Clough vows to be behind the wheel next time. His boss’s driving skills, or lack of them, are legendary.

‘The body. It’s at the Smith Museum.’