‘Deal with it!’ Grenville snapped. ‘Discreetly. If I find Liddle’s been using poison, I’ll sack him. You can tell Mrs Ottway that.’

Chapter Five

When Vic came in for lunch on Saturday he was furious. Marie wanted to tell him that she had her own troubles, that for once in their marriage she needed his support, but even if she had found the courage he would have been too angry to listen to her.

‘Do you know what bloody Grenville’s accused me of now?’ he demanded as he stormed into the kitchen, forgetting to remove his boots. ‘He thinks I’ve been using poison on the estate.’

Marie had made a stew. She was standing by the stove stirring the pot. Cassie was sitting in an easy chair in the corner and shrank away from the violence in Vic’s voice. Marie spoke quietly. Cassie needed calm. The girl picked up any tension in the house.

‘What makes him think that?’

‘Ursula Ottway went to the house last night and made a scene. She said we’d poisoned her cats.’

Marie said nothing.

‘You don’t seem surprised!’ he said. He wanted her to be as outraged as he was, indignant on his behalf.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised. Ursula came here last night on her way back from the Cadver. You were in the pub.’

‘You didn’t tell me,’ he said. He felt betrayed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because,’ she said, keeping her voice even and quiet but obviously angry all the same. ‘Because I had other things on my mind. You’re not my only responsibility.’

‘What happened?’ he demanded. ‘ What did the loony old bitch say?’

‘That her cats were dead and she’d found a poisoned buzzard on one of your gibbets. She said she didn’t think it was like you. There’d not been poison used on the estate for years. She wondered if it could have been some mistake or if Grenville had put pressure on you to clear the hill of vermin. She was quite reasonable. I believed her. She didn’t think it was killed by one of the shepherds because of the gibbet.’

‘Which gibbet was it?’ he demanded.

‘By the stone wall behind Back Rigg.’

‘I was there yesterday. There was nothing there then.’

‘She said the bird was freshly dead.’

He paused, thinking. ‘ That’s not my gibbet,’ he said. ‘It would be one of Danny Craven’s.’

‘Well,’ Marie said. ‘Perhaps Mr Grenville would do better having a word with him.’

‘Why would Danny Craven do a thing like that?’

She shrugged. She seemed hardly interested. She wanted Vic to eat his dinner and go out again so she could restore Cassie to some sort of peace.

‘To make mischief,’ she said. ‘To put you in the wrong. Who knows how his mind works? Now wash your hands and sit down so we can eat.’