‘What’s that got to do with me?’ Marie felt sorry for Vic. He was no match for the tall man with his quiet voice.

‘I’d say it had rather a lot to do with you,’ George said. ‘If you’ve been using poison on the hill you’ll be prosecuted, fined. And you’ll lose your job.’

There was a shocked silence. They had not expected such plain speaking.

‘You’ll have to forgive my husband,’ Marie said. ‘He’s upset. He’s a good keeper and Mr Grenville doesn’t give him the support he should.’ She paused. ‘We know what Ursula said at the Cadver, Mr Palmer-Jones, but Vic doesn’t use poison on the estate. Not now. Mr Grenville doesn’t allow it. Besides, keeping the hill clear of predators isn’t his responsibility. He’s had an under-keeper since February.’

‘What’s the under-keeper’s name?’ George wondered, with some irritation, why Grenville hadn’t told him that there had been a recent addition to the keeping staff. Surely it wasn’t a coincidence that the poisoning coincided almost exactly with the new man’s arrival?

Still Vic did not speak and it was Marie who answered. ‘Danny Craven,’ she said. ‘He lives in the Lodge by the east drive.’

‘Craven wouldn’t have put down poison,’ Vic said uncomfortably. ‘What reason would he have?’

‘What’s he like?’ George asked. ‘ Reliable?’

Liddle shrugged. ‘ Grenville appointed him,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have done.’

‘Did he have any dealings with Ursula Ottway?’ George asked.

‘I shouldn’t have thought so. She’d have been able to see him at work from her house but she’d have no reason to talk to him. And they’d hardly have met socially.’

‘How did she get on with the other people in the valley generally?’

Liddle shook his head as if the question were beyond him and looked to Marie to answer.

‘It’s difficult to explain,’ she said. George waited. ‘She didn’t fit in. Not really. It wasn’t that she was snobby but if she hadn’t married Fred she’d be more likely to mix with the Grenvilles and their friends at the Cadver. She talked to me sometimes about what she’d done when she was young. She went away to finishing school, you know, in Switzerland. The tenant farmers and estate workers didn’t understand her. Not really. If she’d been a guest at the Cadver it would have been different … And then the Grenvilles couldn’t accept her, either. Fred was a tenant, almost an employee. They could hardly invite the pair of them round to dinner.’

She went on, stumbling over the words, trying to explain the ridiculous, delicately balanced class system that had left Ursula a lonely old woman.

‘But you got on with her?’ George said.