It is a little after noon on the first Friday of April, 2004. Shower clouds are in chase of one another above the early spring landscape. Sunlight and shadow feint and dodge between the standing stones at Avebury. A short, tubby, middle-aged man dressed for hiking moves at a slow, reflective pace across the northern inner circle of the henge. He stares thoughtfully at the pair of stones known as Adam and Eve as he passes them, but he does not stop.
A few miles to the east, at Marlborough Cemetery, a burial is in progress. The mourners are gathered at the graveside, heads bowed, as the priest recites the prayer of committal. He is speaking softly, but in the prevailing silence his words carry across this other expanse of standing stones. 'Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed…'
Some miles to the south, a police cordon has been slung across the start of a track through Savernake Forest known as White Road. Two cars with Wiltshire Constabulary badges on their doors have pulled onto the grass verge of the main road next to a blue and white Volkswagen camper van. Three emergency vehicles have drawn up along the track itself behind a parked Bentley, which men in white overalls are inspecting with painstaking care.
Several miles to the east, at Ramsbury, a telephone is ringing in a picturesque cottage at the western end of the village. There is no-one at home to take the call. The answerphone cuts in. And the ringing stops.
Many miles to the south, off Jersey, a telephone is also ringing, in the master cabin of a vast, sleek-lined private cruiser as it noses out from St Helier Harbour into the sea lane. It is ringing. And soon it will be answered.
But not before British Airways Flight 714 to Zurich has lifted off the runway at Heathrow Airport and soared into the sky.
It began at Avebury. But it did not end there.