“Possible,” Banks agreed. “And we already know one keen amateur photographer, don’t we? I’ll get Vic Manson on it right away. He should be able to do a comparison before the morning’s over.”

Just at that moment, a red bald head, shiny with perspiration, appeared over the rim of the meadow. “What’s going on?” grunted Chief Constable Riddle.

“Oh, we’ve just finished here, sir,” said Banks, smiling cheekily as he walked past Riddle and headed down the slope.

The church was hot and smelled like dust burning on the element of an electric fire. Owen remembered hearing somewhere that most household dust was just dead skin. Which meant the church smelled like dead bits of people burning. Hell? All flesh is grass. The heaps of dead, dry grass burning in allotments, or autumn stubble burning in the country fields, vast, rolling carpets of fire spread out in the distance, palls of smoke hanging and twisting in the still twilight air.

Owen took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He had never been comfortable in churches. His parents were both dyed-in-the-wool atheists, and the only times he had really been in church were for weddings and funerals. So he always wore a suit and tie.

Of course, it was all right when you were a tourist checking out the Saxon fonts and Gothic arches, but a different story altogether when there was a vicar up front prattling on about loving they neighbor. Owen had always distrusted overly churchy types before, feeling that the church offered a public aura of respectability to many who pursued their perversions in private. But the vicar in this case was Daniel Charters, now one of the few allies Owen had in the entire world.

Today it was the hoary old chestnut about how you get nothing but bad news in the papers and how that can make you cynical about the world, but really there are wonders and miracles going on all around you all the time.

That morning, Owen could certainly relate to the first part of the sermon, if not the uplifting bit. Just before he had set off for church, he had screwed up the News of the World in a ball and tossed it across the room.

Judging by the looks he got when he walked into St. Mary’s, and by the way so many members of the congregation leaned towards one another and whispered behind cupped hands, even the upmarket clientele of St. Mary’s had had a butcher’s at the News of the World over their cappuccino and croissants.

And there it was, blazoned across the front page in thick black letters: THE STORY THEY COULDN’T TELL IN COURT. Obviously Michelle’s journalist friend had probed her thoroughly. There was a reference to Owen’s liking to take photographs, phrased in such a way that it sounded downright sinister, and a mention of his love of kinky positions. He also, it appeared, liked his sex rough and, as far as partners were concerned, the younger the better. Michelle came out of it sounding more like a victim than a willing lover. Which, Owen supposed, was the intention.

There was also an old, slightly blurred, photograph of the two of them and a scrap of a letter Owen had written Michelle once when he was away at a conference. The letter was a perfectly innocuous can’t-wait-to-see-you again sort of thing, but in this context, of course, it took on a far more disturbing aspect.

He recalled the day the photograph was taken. Shortly after Michelle had moved in with him, they had taken a holiday in Dorset, visiting various sites associated with Thomas Hardy’s novels. In the small graveyard at Stinsford, where Hardy’s heart was buried, they had asked an American tourist to take a photograph of them with Owen’s camera. It turned out a little blurred because the tourist hadn’t quite mastered the art of manual focusing.

Somehow, seeing the photograph and handwriting reproduced in a Sunday tabloid angered Owen even more than the innuendos in the article. Michelle had obviously handed them over to the reporter. It was a violation, a deeper betrayal even than what she said about him. He was quickly beginning to wish that he had killed Michelle.

The whole article screamed out his guilt, of course, protested a miscarriage of justice, though the writer never said as much, not in so many words. Mostly, he just posed questions. Owen wondered if he should consider suing for libel. They were clever, though, these newspaper editors; they vetted everything before they printed it; they could afford a team of lawyers and they had the money put aside to finance large law suits. Still, it was worth considering.

The pew in front of Owen creaked and brought him back to the present. He realized he was sweating, really sweating, and beginning to feel dizzy and nauseated, too. Churches weren’t supposed to be this hot. He hoped it wouldn’t go on much longer; he especially hoped that Daniel wouldn’t say anything about him.

They sang a hymn he remembered hearing once at a wedding, then there were more readings, prayers. It seemed to be going on forever. Owen wanted to go to the toilet now, too, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

One of the readers mentioned seeing something “as in a mirror, dimly” and it took Owen a moment or two to realize this was the approved modern version of “through a glass darkly,” which he thought pretty much described his life. How could they, the English teacher in him wondered, utterly destroy one of the most resonant lines in the Bible, even if people did have trouble understanding what it meant. Since when had religion been about clear, literal, logical meaning anyway?

Finally, it was over. People relaxed, stood, chatted, ambled towards the doors. Many of them glanced at him as they passed. One or two managed brief, flickering smiles. Some pointedly turned away, and others whispered to one another.

Owen waited until most of them had gone. It had cooled down a little now, with the doors open and most people gone home. He still needed to go to the toilet, but not so urgently; he could wait now until he got to the vicarage. That was the plan: tea at the vicarage. He could hardly believe it.

When there were only one or two stragglers left, Owen got up and walked to the door. Daniel and Rebecca stood there chatting with a parishioner. Rebecca put her hand on his arm to stop him going immediately outside, and smiled. Daniel shook his hand and introduced him to the old woman. She looked down at her sensible shoes, muttered some greeting or other, and scurried off. This would obviously take time.

“Well,” said Daniel, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his moist brow. “I suppose we should be grateful Sir Geoffrey and his wife weren’t here.”

Owen hadn’t even thought of that. If he had considered the mere possibility of bumping into Deborah Harrison’s parents, he wouldn’t have gone near the place.

Daniel obviously saw the alarm in Owen’s expression because he reached out and touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was insensitive of me to say that. It’s just that they used to attend. Anyway, come on, let’s go.”

Owen walked outside with Daniel and Rebecca, pleased to be in the breeze again and glad to know he wasn’t entirely alone against the world. Then he saw four policemen hurrying down the tarmac path from the North Market Street gate. He told himself to run, but like Daniel and Rebecca, he simply froze to the spot.