‘So he must have been given the dose at the party,’ Trudy said, nodding her head. ‘At least that gives us a set list of suspects, which is something.’

‘Right, anybody who was at the party,’ Vincent chimed in, looking and sounding excited. It was certainly an improvement, Trudy mused, to his earlier frowning appearances! She had been able to tell, originally, that he hadn’t been too keen on his father doing what he considered to be strictly police work. But both she and Clement knew only too well how infectious ‘detective fever’ could be, and she was happy that he’d now become intrigued by the case. ‘Which lets off the business partner – what’s-his-name?’

‘Geoffrey Thorpe,’ Clement helped out.

‘Yes, because he wasn’t at the party. We can be sure of that, yes?’ his son shot back.

‘He wasn’t on the invitation list supplied by the hostess,’ Trudy corrected him cautiously. She had learned the hard way never to take anything for granted. ‘And when we interviewed him, he claimed to be elsewhere at the time – at a neighbour’s house for a small party. But we’d better check on that,’ she said, starting a fresh page in her notebook, under the heading ‘Things to do’.

‘Who at the Vanders’ party would have a motive to kill him?’ Vincent asked eagerly.

‘Well, the hostess for a start, if she found out her lover wasn’t the golden boy she thought,’ Trudy said at once. ‘And I think there’s a reasonable chance that Millie might have begun to suspect that, given all that seems to have been going on at the party that night.’

‘Right, the gate-crasher,’ Vincent put in. ‘She denied being there, you said?’

‘Yes, but we both think she was lying, don’t we Dr Ryder?’ Trudy said, looking at the coroner.

Clement, who’d been watching and listening to the two young people with a small, indulgent smile, nodded obligingly.

‘We don’t know exactly what her motive was,’ Trudy added cautiously, ‘but Katherine Morton thought they were arguing about some love affair or other.’

‘What, the triangle going on between herself, Millicent and the dead man you mean?’ Vincent sought clarification.

‘Maybe,’ Trudy said.

‘But not necessarily,’ Clement felt compelled to caution them. ‘Whilst it’s possible the victim and our gate-crasher had been having an affair, an accusation of infidelity cast against the victim might not have been about Millicent. From what we know of our victim, Terry Parker might have been cheating on his wealthy lover, and the gate-crasher both!’

‘It’s beginning to get complicated,’ Vincent said, sounding not a whit put out.

‘And let’s not forget the horrible twins,’ Trudy said darkly. ‘Both of them had a reason for getting rid of Terrence. I can’t see either one of them being thrilled at the idea of having him foisted on them as a stepfather.’