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murder lie? Before deciding, she wanted to get a feel for the area where Warren lived and died. Reading a file without visiting the scene was like hiring a DVD of a concert instead of watching it live. You needed to soak up the atmosphere. No matter how scrupulous the original investigation (and scrupulous wasn’t a description anyone ever associated with Charlie), the paperwork could never tell you everything. Most of the suspects lived in and around Old Sawrey. Had done all their lives, probably still did. She wanted a picture of the place in her mind, as well as a picture of the dead man.
    One Lake District village was, in Hannah’s opinion, very much not like another. Each had its own unique identity. How could you compare Troutbeck, Cartmel, Watendlath? Even the tiniest settlements were distinctive. She’d once gone on the statutory day trip to Near Sawrey, to take a timed ticket courtesy of the National Trust and traipse round Beatrix Potter’s old home, accompanied by a coachload of Peter Rabbit fans who’d made a special journey from Osaka. Across the hay fields, Far Sawrey boasted its own church, shop and part-time post office. Old Sawrey must be the poor relation, skulking among the oak trees up a lane that petered out into a path winding up Claife Heights.
    The sun blazed as she threaded through the narrow byways to the west of Windermere. On days like these, she loved driving. She had the roof open, breathing the hot air, letting Bill Withers’ ‘Lovely Day’ wash over her. A month earlier, she’d taken delivery of a gleaming two-litre Lexus and she was still relishing her new toy. She qualified for an essential-user car loan and on impulse had dug into herown pocket as well and gone for something livelier than a boring old Mondeo or Vectra. Motorway driving was tedious, too many roadworks, but the gentle pace of the lanes was fine, at least until she encountered a minibus full of tourists coming in the opposite direction and had to reverse all the way back to the nearest passing place.
    After a couple of wrong turnings, she found the ‘no through road’ sign she’d been seeking and squeezed her car between steep grassy banks. To her right she caught glimpses of a strip of water through a cluster of rowan trees. Beyond a farm gate, the lane became a rutted track, climbing through woodland. On a post beside a wooden gate, she saw a green slate nameplate marked Keepsake Cottage. The Gleave house, scene of the crime.
    She pulled up at the end of the lane. Neat and whitewashed, the cottage was elevated so that even ground-floor rooms commanded a view of Esthwaite Water over the tops of the trees. Scarcely 10 Rillington Place or 24 Cromwell Street, yet this was where Warren Howe had been butchered.
    His body had been discovered in the back garden. So close to civilisation and yet a murderer had been able to scythe down Warren Howe in the open air with little fear of being observed. Nobody walking the path up the incline would have had a clear sight of the grounds of Keepsake Cottage; the woodland was too dense.
    On impulse, she walked up the driveway, the urge to explore overpowering caution. If someone came out of the cottage and demanded to know what she was up to, she would produce her ID. It almost always did the trick; most people wanted to keep on the right side of the law.
    Suddenly a bark broke the stillness and a sleepy-eyed mongrel, a canine Robert Mitchum, moseyed down thepath. It looked in the mood to bite the hand that fed it identification. She swore and beat a retreat to the Ford. The dog followed her to the bottom of the drive and gave an uncompromising yelp as it watched her leave. As she executed a three-point turn, she took a hand off the wheel and pretended to shoot the pooch, but it gave her a sidelong glance packed with Mitchumesque scorn.
    Soon she was on the lower slopes of Claife Heights, driving past a large green board with yellow lettering outside the entrance to an old farmhouse