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eyes narrowed. ‘Why do I get the distinct impression that you’re not happy with the way things are goin’?’
    â€˜Maybe because I’m not. The area should be easy to search because it’s all open moorland. If the snow does anything at all, it helps rather than hinders us. So it ought to be a doddle to spot Dugdale, and if we haven’t done it by now – which we haven’t – then I don’t think we ever will.’
    â€˜Of course, we don’t actually know he was at the farm at the time of the murders,’ Woodend pointed out.
    â€˜But we do know he was there just a few hours before,’ his sergeant countered.
    â€˜Do we? How?’
    â€˜While you were seeing Joan off, one of the lads found a witness who saw him last night.’
    â€˜Go on,’ Woodend said.
    â€˜It was a neighbour of his – or at least, what passes for a neighbour out on the moors. He was driving back from Whitebridge at about eight o’clock last night when he saw Dugdale’s Land Rover broken down by the side of the road. He pulled over and helped Dugdale to get it started again. But it still wasn’t running very well, so he followed it all the way back to the farm, just to make sure that it didn’t break down a second time.’
    So Wilfred Dugdale had been at the farm somewhere between six and eleven hours before the murders, depending on whether they accepted Doc Pierson’s estimate of the time of death or relied on the evidence of the smashed watch on the dead man’s wrist.
    Woodend lit up a cigarette. He was starting to share his sergeant’s unease about the search.
    â€˜You’re sure Dugdale didn’t have another vehicle?’ he asked.
    â€˜Positive.’
    â€˜Then he just has to be somewhere out there.’
    Paniatowski glanced up at the window which was set high in the basement wall. The pavement it looked out on to was already covered with a good three inches of snow.
    â€˜He’s an old man,’ she pointed out. ‘Say crossing the moors in this weather was all too much of an effort for him, and he collapsed. He’ll be covered with snow by now. The search parties could walk within a couple of feet of him and still not see him.’
    If that was what had happened, then the old farmer would be dead by the time they
did
find him, Woodend thought. And then what conclusion would they probably be forced to draw? That Dugdale had suddenly gone berserk, killed the two guests at his farmhouse, and died trying to escape. It would certainly be a neat and tidy way to wrap things up, but Woodend had long ago come to distrust neat and tidy solutions where murder was concerned.
    â€˜What else have you been doin’ while I’ve been at the railway station?’ he asked.
    â€˜Following the usual procedures. Contacting all the other police stations in the immediate area to see if anybody’s been reported missing. Co-ordinating with Traffic and⎯’
    â€˜That reporter . . . what’s his name . . .?’
    â€˜Bennett.’
    â€˜Bennett said that the man who phoned him up early this morning had a definite Manchester accent, an’ since he works there, I suppose we should take his word for it. See if Manchester Police can tell us anythin’ useful.’
    â€˜Will do.’
    â€˜What about fingerprints?’
    â€˜According to DC Battersby, there were loads of latents. I think we might strike it lucky and get a match with our records.’
    â€˜What makes you say that?’ Woodend wondered.
    â€˜I’ve just got the feeling that there are criminals involved.’
    Woodend smiled. ‘Generally speaking, murder
is
regarded as a crime,’ he said – but still, he knew exactly what she meant.
    â€˜Take the male victim,’ Paniatowski said earnestly. ‘He looks as if he was undernourished as a kid, but then lots of kids were undernourished thirty or forty years ago. His