Scribbs slid into the Vauxhall and belted herself in while Ash picked up directions to the body find. She shook her head at the strange story Ash had been telling her back in the office. "Ash, Ash, Ash. What have I told you about picking up strange men?" she was muttering just as her partner slid into the car.

"What's that?" Ash asked.

"Nothing."

"Well you were muttering something."

Scribbs started the car and pulled from the Police parking lot. "Oh, I was just wondering what got into you."

"About what?"

"This weird guy, the stalker."

"He wasn't a stalker. He, well, he thought I was someone he knew."

Scribbs looked hard at Ash. "Oh? If that's so then why did he so upset you? Because, Ash, you seem quite cheesed-off about the whole thing. Who was he? Come on; give."

Ash sighed. "I don't want to talk about him. Let's just concentrate on this case."

Scribbs got into heavy traffic on the Motorway out of town. "You're a hard one, you are."

Not always, thought Ash. "Not as much as you might think Emma," she said to herself.

"What's that?" Scribbs said.

"Just drive, Scribbs." Kate looked away from her friend and bit her lip. It had been an odd weekend; unsettling in some ways. Ash started twisting her hands together nervously and she didn't really know why.

After getting out of town the pair got to the closed and very ex-RAF field. It had been going to weeds for years and the local council wanted to develop the acres of empty space, but as usual red tape tied up any transfer of government property. Their car followed the torn up drive onto the base, past a constable who let them in under a rusty orange lift gate.

"Is the whole place fenced like this?" Emma asked.

"Typical waste," Ash said. "Spend millions of quid to build it up then let it go. Then keep people out of it."

"It was an earlier time though. Big bad Russians against the good guys."

Scribbs drove along the meandering road following orange arrows propped up at the turns. "I thought this place went back to the War?"

Ash shook her head. "No. This was all new in the fifties. They had fighters and bombers poised here 24/7 just in case."

They passed falling down buildings and some rusted fuel tanks until they saw police vehicles parked ahead.

"Well thank God the balloon never went up. Duck and cover and all that crap," Emma grunted.

"We're still here," Kate agreed, "so it must have done some good."

PC Gallimore smiled as the women drove up to two police vans and a patrol car. "Oi! Just my lucky day! Middleford's finest!" he shouted when he saw the detectives.

Scribbs grinned at him as she climbed from the car. "The Boss knew you weren't up to the job, so he sent us!"

Gallimore laughed as he often needled the two women. It was all in fun, of course. He quite fancied both of them – strictly on a professional level, but if his old lady knew he was ogling the CID birds she'd have him by the short hairs. "I suppose you want to see where they found the body. Couple of midnight teens, boy and girl, saw him floating out there."

Ash and Scribbs inspected the pond, perhaps seventy feet across. "Stinks," said Ash.

"Yep," sighed Gallimore waving a hand in front of his nose. "The runway over there drains down this way. Imagine all the muck down in there. We had a diver in there and all he found was a dead badger and some ancient tyres."

Ash inspected the file of photos Gallimore handed her. "So the kids saw him floating."

"Right. The kids found him and then saw his car tucked over in the brush. But he didn't drown, says the medicos." The PC rubbed his face. "That's why Sullivan brought you lot in. The kids were snogging over here," he pointed towards a small ruin of brick. "Seems there are plenty of holes in the fences plus the gate we drove thru. The kids rode out on the boy's motorbike. On a night of a full moon, I guess they thought it was romantic."

Ash rolled her eyes at Scribbs. "And they found a body."

Gallimore grimaced. "Stuff of nightmares. Dead man is one James Edward Moore; sales rep for a drug company. They found his car over there," he pointed to a gravelly spot. "Looks like he came out here for a breather."

Ash read more of the file. "The body was found without shoes?"

The PC nodded. "Weird. They were in his car."

Scribbs looked over Kate's shoulder at a sketch map drawn of the area. "Sullivan said something about footprints."

"Come this way," Gallimore replied. "The SOCO boys came back doing a sweep and found prints – foot and bike."

Scribbs stepped over a squishy spot, grimacing. "This will ruin my shoes."

Gallimore laughed and pointed down at his Wellies. "Come prepared I say."

Ash squatted down to peer at the prints. "Large, aren't they?" she asked a tech named Johns who was kneeling in front of one; a large case open next to him.

The Scene of Crime Officer was lifting a plaster cast taken from one. "Oh yes; a whopper. Maybe an eleven or a twelve," he grunted. "So far we've only found four good ones plus the bike tyres. The Bills messed the scene up pretty well, and the ground here is quite muddy, so not many have been preserved."

"Any ideas?" Scribbs asked him.

"The Boss told us the prints might match the B&E prints," Ash added. She turned back to Johns who was gingerly placing the cast into a shallow plastic bin. "Got a guess?"

Johns nodded. "I do. I pulled decent prints at two of your Breaking and Entering houses." He pointed a gloved finger to the tread pattern, now cast in relief. "I'd say these are the same shoes. Smooth tread, rounded toes, and these?" He poked at indentations. "These are sockets of a bike clip."

Ash stood up. "So this guy, assuming it's a man, is serious about cycling."

"Unless it's a very tall woman," answered Scribbs.

"With big feet," Johns laughed. "You never know."

Scribbs stood and gingerly walked over to firmer ground. "And the bike was here?"

The tech said, "I've already got those tracks cast. Narrow tyre. Fairly smooth tread. If you walk about ten meters up that way you can see where they got stuck in the mud and had to pull it out."

Ash joined Scribbs as she walked along a strip of firmer ground. "So," Kate sighed, "now we need to find a cyclist."

"Over there," Scribbs said, pointing to the mucky spot. "He got stuck right here."

They inspected the deep wheel ruts but they were not very enlightening. "Lots of people bike though," reflected Ash.

Scribbs nodded and rubbed her arms in the cold wind. "Cold out here." She peered around at the vast runway, a distant falling-down hanger and other small buildings. "Hell of a place to die."

Ash wrinkled her nose. "Never a good place, is there? What I want to know is why did our cyclist come out here? Miles from Middleford. Was he, let's say he for the sake of convenience, connected to the death of James Moore? Does he have a thing for breaking into homes and cycling in wild places and does a little murder on the side, just for fun?"

"You have a morbid imagination today." Scribbs shook her head. "I answered Gallimore that the Boss sent the best. Are we?"

Ash nodded. "We have to be."

"Right," Scribbs answered. "Now can we get out of this muck?" She held up a muddy shoe. "I need dry shoes and a cuppa."

Ash nodded. "Let's go talk to the M.E. first."

The pathologist and Medical Examiner, Dr. Weatherall, opened a file when he saw them come into his office. "Here's your boy," he gave them a slim folder. "Forty-two, in decent health from what I can find. James Edward Moore. DCI Sullivan called me about you two being on this case."

Scribbs and Ash read the file together and silently.

After a minute and two pages Scribbs asked him, "Signs of trauma?"

"None. A bit drunk though. Blood alcohol was right up there and he might have thought he could walk on water." Weatherall steepled his fingers together. "But he didn't drown. No water in his lungs or foam in his throat, nose, and mouth."

Ash and Scribbs looked at one another for a few seconds. "And?" asked Ash.

Weatherall smiled at them. "The real question is why did he go there? And when? After those kids called the cops the car's motor was dead cold by the time someone thought to check it. And the water temperature chilled the body right down. So I can't give you even a good guess at time of death. But he'd eaten a full meal - dinner looked like - and it was partially digested."

Ash slowly followed Scribbs down the hall away from the morgue and sighed.

"Problem?" Scribbs asked. "I still need that cuppa."

"Fine," snapped her colleague.

"And… I want to hear about your mystery man. And you're buying."

Kate set her hot coffee on a table in the police canteen as she sat down. "He was a doctor, a GP; in Bath for a conference."

"Oh?" said Scribbs as she sipped at her tea. "A doctor. Lah dee dah. Nice suit you said he was wearing. Well heeled?"

"Likely not," answered Ash. "He was from a little village down in Cornwall."

"Cornwall?"

"Some biscuit-tin village named Portwenn."