"Kitchener's students. And a bigger bunch of wallies you've never seen; bright kids, but they're plugged into some other universe the whole time. Typical student types, naive and fashionably rebellious. They were the only ones in Launde Abbey at the time. The Abbey's security system memory showed no one else sneaked in, and it's all top-grade gear. But I'm not just relying on that as evidence. It was a nasty storm the night Kitchener was murdered, remember?"

"Yeah," Greg said. He remembered the day of Roy Collister's lynch mob.

Langley climbed to his feet, and went over to the big flatscreen on the rear wall. "Jon Nevin will show you what I mean. He's been checking out all the possible access routes to the Abbey."

One of the other detectives stood up; in his late twenties, thinning black hair shaved close, a narrow face with a long nose that had been broken at some time. He made an effort to rein back on his hostility as Greg and Eleanor trailed after Langley.

The map was centred on Launde Park, an irregular patch coloured a phosphorescent pink. A tall column of seven-digit numbers had been superimposed alongside. From the scale, Greg judged the park had an area of about a square kilometre; he hadn't quite realized how remote it was, situated half-way up the side of the Chater valley. A lone road bisecting the valley was its only link with the outside world.

Nevin tapped a finger on the little black rectangle which represented the Abbey. His face registered total uninterest. If he'd still been in the army, Greg would have called it dumb insolence.

"Because of its isolated position we don't believe anyone could have got to Launde Abbey at any time after six o'clock last Thursday afternoon," Nevin recited in a dull tone.

"What time was Kitchener killed?" Greg asked.

"Approximately four-thirty on Friday morning," Langley said. "Give or take fifteen minutes. Certainly not before four."

"The storm arrived at Launde Abbey at about five p.m. On Thursday," Nevin said. His hand traced northwards along the road outside the Abbey. "We estimate the bridge over the River Chater was submerged by six, completely unpassable. The rainfall was very heavy around here, fifteen centimetres according to the meteorological office at RAP Cottesmore.

Basically, that bridge is just a couple of big concrete-pipe sections with earth and stone shovelled on top; it's a very minor road, even by the last century's standards.

"That just leaves us the route to the south. The road goes up over the brow of the valley, and into Loddington; but there is a fork just outside Loddington which leads away to Belton. So in order to get on to the road to Launde you have to go through either Loddington or Belton."

Greg studied the villages; they were tiny, smaller than Hambleton. Long columns of code numbers were strung out beside them. He could see where Nevin was leading. They were small insular farming communities, and anything out of the ordinary—strangers, unknown vehicles—would become a talking-point for weeks. He pointed to the thin roads that led to Launde Park. "What sort of condition are these roads in?" he asked.

"The map is deceptive," Nevin admitted. He swept his hand over the web of yellow lines covering the land to the west of Oakham; it was a bleak stretch of countryside, furrowed with twisting valleys and steeply rounded hills. A few lonely farmhouses were dotted about, snug in the lee of depressions. "All these minor roads are down to farm tracks in most places. Some stretches are completely overgrown, you have to be a local to know where to drive."

"And you're saying nobody went through Loddington or Belton after six o'clock on Thursday?" Eleanor asked.

"That's right, there wasn't even any local traffic," Jon Nevin said. "Everybody was battened down before the storm began. We did a house-to-house enquiry in both Loddington and Belton." He pointed at the columns of numbers. "These are our file codes for the statements; you can review them if you want, we interviewed everybody. You see, the streets in both villages are very narrow, and if any vehicle had gone through the residents would have known."

Eleanor shrugged acceptance, and gave him a warm smile. The detective couldn't maintain his air of indifference under those circumstances. Greg pretended not to notice.

Langley went and sat behind the nearest desk, hooking an arm over the back of the chair. "In any case, the important thing is, we know for a fact that nobody came out of the valley between six o'clock Thursday evening and six o'clock Friday morning. The murderer was there when we arrived."

"How do you figure that?" Greg asked.

"The Chater bridge was still under water until midday Friday. That just leaves the south road again. If you were coming out of the valley, you had to use it.

"The students called us from the Abbey at five-forty on Friday morning. It was Jon here and a couple of uniforms who responded. They took a car down to the Abbey just after six."

We were the first to use that road after the storm finished," Nevin said, "and we had a lot of trouble. It was covered in fresh mud from the rains, and it was absolutely pristine. No tyre tracks. I was very careful to check. And you couldn't cut across country, not with the ground in that state, it was saturated; even your EMC Ranger would sink in up to the hubcaps. The only people in that valley when Kitchener was killed were his students."

Greg checked the map again, and decided they were probably right about the roads. He thought about how he would go about killing Kitchener. There had been enough similar missions in Turkey. Covert penetrations, tracking down enemy officers, eliminating them without fuss, stealing away afterwards, leaving the Legion troops unnerved by their blatant vulnerability. An old man confined in a verified location would be an easy target.

"What about aircraft?" he asked.

Langley let out a soft snort. "I checked with the CAA and the RAE. There was nothing flying around the Chater valley early Friday morning, nor Thursday evening for that matter."

"Can we shift this focus to show the rest of the Chater valley?" Greg asked.

"Yes," Langley said. He waved permission to Nevin. The detective started to tap out instructions on a desk terminal. After a minute the map blinked out altogether, and he cursed.

Amanda Paterson joined him at the terminal.

"This is how it goes here," Langley said, half to himself. "I don't suppose your Home Office contact considered allocating us a decent equipment budget as well?"

"I doubt it."

He curled up a corner of his mouth in resignation.

The map reappeared, flickering for a moment, then steadied and slowly traversed east to west until Launde Park touched the left-hand edge of the flatscreen.

"Is that all right?" Paterson asked.

"Yeah, thanks," Greg said. He tracked the River Chater out of Launde Park towards the east. It was almost a straight course. Further down from Launde, the floor of the valley was crossed by a few minor roads, but essentially it was empty until he reached Ketton, twenty kilometres away. "If it was me," Greg said, his eyes still on the map, "I would use a military microlight to fly in. You could launch anywhere west of Ketton, and cruise up the river, keeping your altitude below the top of the valley to avoid radar."

The detectives glanced about uncertainly.

"A microlight?" Langley said. His mild tone betrayed a strong scepticism.

"No messing. The Westland ghost wing was the best ever made, by my reckoning anyway. They had a high reliability, a minute radar return, and they manoeuvred like a dream. Nobody could hear it from the ground once you were above a hundred metres; and you glided down to a landing." His fingernail made a light click as he touched the screen above Launde Park. "The gradient of the slopes around the Abbey would be ideal for an unpowered launch afterwards."