George Hennessey leaned leisurely back in his chair and cupped his fleshly and slightly liver-spotted hands round the mug of hot tea which he was holding. ‘Just can’t think without this lovely stuff,’ he commented, lifting the tea to his lips and, finding it to be still too hot to drink, lowered it again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘we can begin to assume that the identity of the person in the shallow grave at Gate Helmsley is that of James Wenlock. The DNA test will be a match, a positive identification. In my old copper’s waters I can feel the certainty very strongly: the man’s age, the similarity of the e-fit, the local nature of Mr Wenlock’s address and his place of employment, the man’s height ... everything so far dovetails neatly with the information given in the mis-per report, and so we have quite a mystery on our hands, a murder most foul to solve.’ ‘It does seem so, sir.’ Somerled Yellich held his own mug of tea in one hand and the opened case file in the other.
