‘Of course!’ Trudy said, wanting to kick herself for not thinking of this herself. ‘She can simply go upstairs to the bathroom or her bedroom or whatever, and hey presto! She had a murder weapon right there at her disposal.’

Liking this scenario more and more, Trudy stopped walking down the pavement towards the car and turned to face him, her breath pluming out like gusts of steam between them in the frigid air. ‘Say she sees or hears something compromising going on between the love of her life and the mystery woman, and in a fit of sudden rage or despair or what-have-you, she wants revenge. She’s hardly the type to go and get a kitchen knife, is she? But she’s only got to think things through for a bit and she’s bound to think of her sleeping pills.’

‘If she takes them,’ Clement said. ‘Don’t lose sight of the fact that, as of now, this is speculation of the wildest kind. For all we know, she might sleep like a baby quite naturally, and there’s nothing more compromising in her medicine cabinet than aspirin and corn plasters.’

Trudy giggled at the thought of the elegant Mrs Vander with corns on her tiny toes. Then she sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. Still … It does make you wonder, doesn’t it?’ she said.

‘Oh, it does indeed,’ Clement agreed dryly.

Chapter 22

Geoffrey Thorpe stood just inside Terrence Parker’s small garden shed and glanced nervously around. He’d known that his business partner kept a spare key to his house hidden inside a galvanised tin watering can, ever since Terry had had to use it last summer. Circumstances had dictated that they needed to hold an impromptu meeting at the dead man’s house and Terry had discovered that he’d left his main keys back in the office. Geoffrey remembered chiding him about leaving a spare key so accessible, but was glad now that his business partner had been so lackadaisical.

He breathed a sigh of relief to see that the watering can was still there. He looked around again, reassured by the blank windows and still curtains on either side of his late partner’s house. Even so, he felt hideously exposed, and – not for the first time since his death – cursed Terry Parker long and hard for being such a damned nuisance. He quickly retrieved the key and ploughed somewhat awkwardly across the lawn, with its thick layer of virgin snow, towards the back kitchen door. There he used the key and very gingerly pushed the door open.

Since he hadn’t spotted any police presence in the front of the house, or now at the back, he felt reasonably sure that it was safe to proceed.