They’d entered the edge of the trees, and as the trail took a sharp bend they lost sight of the buildings they’d just come from.

‘I don’t like forests,’ said Fry. ‘You ought to know that by now.’

‘This is hardly a forest,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s landscaped parkland. Some previous earl obviously planted a few trees to create a view from the east wing.’

‘But you said there are wild animals.’

‘Roe deer. They’re far more frightened of you than you are of them, Diane.’

Fry didn’t look convinced. But he knew no animals would come near her, if they could help it. She was hardly Snow White, attracting wild creatures to feed trustingly from her hand. She was more the kind of person who would introduce a badger cull, then willingly extend it to include anything that moved in the dark.

‘One of the great things about these big trees is that they make such wonderful landmarks,’ Burns was saying. ‘You might not be able to find your way through a wood where all the trees are the same age and look identical. But anyone can find this grand old chap.’

‘And lots of people do, I suppose?’ said Cooper.

‘Oh, he’s a tourist attraction in his own right. We have signs on all the trails to point the way to him. Visitors love to come and stand underneath his branches and have their photos taken, or see how many of them it takes to reach all the way round his trunk. British people have a very affectionate relationship with this particular species.’

‘Do they?’ said Fry.

Cooper laughed. Her horrified expression suggested she was imagining a much more intimate relationship than anything Burns had meant.

‘There he is,’ said Burns. ‘The Grandfather Oak.’

The Old Man of Knowle, or the Grandfather Oak, was a thousand-year-old oak tree. Its status as a unique tourist attraction was the reason it was mentioned in the leaflets about Knowle Abbey.

Cooper paced round the tree. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, but he could find none of the things that he might have expected from examining the scene at the Corpse Bridge. No effigy, no noose, no witch ball filled with curses. Not even any graffiti or obscene messages carved into the ancient bark. There were no signs that anyone had been here with malicious intent. And it would be useless to do a forensic search of the woods. Far too many people came through here, leaving signs of their presence.

He looked up into the branches. It would make a great vantage point, he supposed. But these branches were old and brittle. A couple of the larger boughs were propped up by lengths of timber to prevent them from snapping under their own weight. He wouldn’t want to try climbing this tree without proper safety equipment.

Cooper turned to look at the abbey. It was barely visible from here. Just a small tower on the south corner in the distance could be glimpsed through the trees.

As they made their way back along the trail, the abbey came into sight again. Cooper spotted a small, slightly overweight figure moving towards the back of the house. He was dressed in wellingtons, mud-spattered jeans, a tweed jacket and a felt hat.

He pointed at the figure.

‘Is that…’ he began.

‘Yes, that was the earl,’ said Burns. ‘I think Her Ladyship has sent him to do some mucking out in the stables.’

‘Who’s “Her Ladyship”?’ asked Fry.

‘The Countess. Lord Manby’s wife.’

‘Countess? I thought her husband was an earl, not a count?’

‘Well, we don’t have counts in England any more. They replaced the title with a more Anglo-Saxon version centuries ago.’

‘And they never bothered introducing a female form of the new title,’ added Cooper.

‘Typical.’

Fry dropped back and leaned closer to Cooper when Burns was out of earshot. She waited to be sure that Burns wasn’t listening.

‘With all the staff he employs,’ said Fry, ‘don’t you think Lord Manby would have someone to do the mucking out for him?’

‘I think Meredith was joking,’ said Cooper.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. You missed that?’

‘I must have done.’

‘It was a reference to the way the earl was dressed. Actually, I think she felt a bit embarrassed about us seeing him.’

‘Ah. Perhaps he was presenting the wrong image.’

‘I believe that was exactly it,’ said Cooper.

But as they returned to the estate office, Cooper was wondering why Fry hadn’t noticed the significance of the earl’s very different appearance, once he was at home and relaxing among his own rolling acres instead of in white tie and tails at a formal occasion. Now Lord Manby looked exactly like the effigy on the Coffin Stone.

In her office Meredith Burns became defensive when Cooper asked about the earl’s plans for the church and graveyard at Bowden.

‘As I told you, we have to do everything we can to bring in revenue for the maintenance and repair of the abbey,’ she said. ‘I explained that to you last time you came. The monthly wage bill alone is staggering. The staff is enormous – you’d be surprised how many people there are working here.’

‘About three hundred?’ said Fry.

Burns was clearly taken aback. ‘Yes, around that figure.’

‘But you didn’t mention the graveyard at Bowden,’ said Cooper.

‘It’s just one of a range of projects,’ protested Burns. ‘Some of the old staff properties will become holiday lets. We’re also hoping to get planning permission to build some new chalet-style units on the western side of the burial ground, within the walls of the park itself. Those units will have a very desirable setting.’

‘And there’s the church, of course.’

‘Yes, and the church will be sold. We’ve had several expressions of interest, but unfortunately we don’t have a confirmed buyer yet.’

‘Does it surprise you that many of the people whose family members are buried at Bowden have strong objections to these plans?’

Burns shrugged. ‘It was bound to happen. Some of these decisions are painful, but they have to be made. Otherwise what would happen to Knowle?’

She sat down at her desk and stared at a large plan of the Knowle Abbey estate on the wall in front of her.

‘You know, at one time, this estate consisted of more than fifty properties and about three thousand acres of parkland and farms,’ she said. ‘Inheritance tax and divorce settlements have taken their toll over the centuries. But it has to be admitted that much of the decline was due to bad management by successive earls who were more interested in hunting and shooting, or in hosting lavish dinner parties for the local gentry.’

Cooper was satisfied to hear his speculation confirmed. But it was Fry who voiced what he was thinking. She had always been more prone to blurting out her opinions – probably more than was good for her.

‘I don’t think anyone would be surprised by that,’ said Fry.

‘I realise it’s an image still common among the more ill-informed members of the public,’ said Burns.

Fry opened her mouth to object and Cooper thought for a moment he was going to have to intervene in a peacekeeping role. But Burns didn’t seem to notice Fry’s reaction. She pointed at the map of the estate in front of her.

‘When the present earl took over the estate, he launched himself into a whole series of projects,’ she said. ‘As Walter himself would tell you, he inherited a great many wasted assets and he wanted to make them work for their living. His first idea was the conversion of the old coach house into a restaurant. Then the kitchen gardens were turned into a plant nursery, and a craft shop was created in the joinery workshop. We’ve recently applied to the county council for a licence to use part of the abbey as a wedding venue. But none of these activities brings in enough money – and as revenue streams they’re unpredictable, because they rely on the general public. An extended spell of bad weather could ruin us.’

‘Or negative publicity?’ asked Cooper.