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registered for the first time that the three sides of the property that didn’t face onto the road were bordered by a head-high post-and-wire fence with a single strand of barbed
wire running along the top. She recognized it as the type of fence that the Forestry Commission erected to keep deer from newly planted saplings, except that to her knowledge Forestry fences
didn’t tend to incorporate barbed wire.
    Jenny turned at the sound of voices and saw Ryan giving instructions to a police photographer, telling him to make sure he got clear shots of the faded graffiti.
    Leaving him to it, Ryan came and joined her.
    ‘Certain you don’t want to look at the bodies? Last chance. They’re about to go in the van.’
    ‘I’ll leave it till the morgue,’ Jenny said, preferring to avoid any disturbing sights that could wait until another day.
    Ryan called over to his colleagues out in the lane. The undertakers pulled on facemasks and, carrying a pair of hand-held stretchers, went with two forensics officers to gather up the
remains.
    ‘What do you make of this fence?’ Jenny said, turning her back on the scene. ‘And if he’s gone to all that trouble, why does it only run around three sides?’
    ‘I think it went along the front, too,’ Ryan said. ‘The fire crew must have ripped it down.’
    ‘Looks like Ed Morgan might have put it up himself – got the tall posts from Forestry supplies. You said he worked for them.’
    ‘That’s right,’ Ryan said vaguely. He glanced at his watch. ‘Seen enough yet? There are a lot of impatient people out there.’
    ‘Do you think it’s anything to do with that graffiti? Could Ed have been trying to keep someone out?’
    ‘More likely trying to keep his daughters in,’ Ryan said. ‘We are talking about a family annihilator. Controlling types, aren’t they?’
    ‘Do you know if he had a lot of locks on the doors? Was the place hard to get out of?’
    Ryan gave a tired smile. ‘You’re wondering could they have been trapped inside? Maybe Ed didn’t do it after all?’
    ‘Why is that funny?’
    ‘Aside from his goodbye note and the fact that his three-year-old son is still unaccounted for, nothing at all.’
    Jenny felt herself blush. Ryan had made her feel foolish.
    He continued: ‘Our forensics people are saying both girls had been shot through the chest with a twelve-bore shotgun. The back of Ed’s skull was blown off and the gun – the
metal part of it, at least – was found next to what was left of him. I can tell you now – he’s been licensed to own a shotgun and hunting rifle all his adult life. I doubt there
was a day went by that Ed Morgan didn’t kill something, but this time –’ Ryan glanced over at the undertakers loading the stretchers into their black van marked ‘Private
Ambulance’ – ‘this time he took it to the next level.’
    Jenny felt a rush of icy wind against her face. The first hint of breeze in days. ‘Were there any witnesses?’
    ‘Plenty to the fire. A few others. You’ll get their statements tomorrow.’
    ‘Susie Ashton was taken from her garden, wasn’t she?’
    Ryan met Jenny’s gaze. ‘I wouldn’t know. Before my time. Aren’t you getting cold? I am.’ He started back towards the front of the house. ‘I’ll see if
the photographer can’t email you those pictures before he goes.’
    The dull afternoon light was fading to grey. The breeze, now picking up to a light wind, carried a whiff of coal smoke from a neighbour’s chimney. Somewhere up in the woods Jenny heard a
dog barking and men’s voices – officers combing the countryside for Robbie Morgan’s tiny body. There was something about the scene – a
feel
, nothing she could put
into words – that told her she should try to remember it. She reached out her phone, called up the video camera and swept it slowly across the garden and hillside behind, keeping it rolling
as she followed Ryan back to the road.

FIVE
    T HE BULLDOZER – if that was