‘Yes. She gave advice to the younger ones and did a spot of home help for a few of them, like gardening and the like – she was green fingered sure enough.’

‘I’ve seen her garden. It was beautiful.’

‘Was? Burned eh? Dreadful. Who’d do that? Have you caught anyone yet?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. We’re looking at all angles. It would seem that Mary had no family. Can you comment on that?’

‘She was married, but they parted before any children came along, though she would have made a wonderful mother. I never heard her speak of sisters or brothers. Her parents are long gone I think; in fact, I seem to recall that was their house she lived in.’

‘Yes, we’ve found that from the deeds. So, the group was important to her? It seems it was her main social outlet. How often did you meet?’

‘It wasn’t set in stone. We tried to get together once a month but it didn’t always happen. Erm, sometimes it would be a handful of us and other times, we’d have all of us.’

‘What was the nature of the group?’

‘Birdwatching.’

‘Really? That’s interesting. Who created it?’

‘I did. I advertised in the local area and Mary was the first to respond. We ran it.’

‘There’s quite an age range. I never knew birdwatching was so popular.’

‘You’d be surprised. We live in an area so rich with birds that people come from as far away as the USA to spot rare migrations and even eagles.’

Kelly knew that a pair of golden eagles nested around Haweswater reservoir, but they were notoriously private and difficult to spot: they could easily be myth.

‘That explains why Mary kept so many wrens. I can hear birds in your garden too, do you keep them in cages?’

‘We like to call them aviaries. Cages sounds so barbaric.’

‘Of course. I apologise. What birds do you keep?’

‘Keep is an anomalous word. One never keeps a bird unless it is in captivity. A true lover of birds never locks them in. Our birds are all migratory and they come back here every spring. They’re getting ready to leave now, I can hear them chattering. They’ll fly to Central and South America, and return in March. The loudest ones are wrens.’

‘That’s quite a journey.’

‘They’re more gifted than us.’

‘The king of birds.’

‘Quite.’

‘I believe Mary attracted wrens to her garden too.’

Fred nodded.

‘Mr O’Reilly – Fred – can I be blunt? Mary’s pets were destroyed in the attack, which you know. They were all locked away. How would anyone manage that?’

‘Isn’t that your job? They were barbarians like I said. They either came in a pack, drugged them, or knew animals the way Mary did.’

‘You mean tricked them into their pens?’

‘Yes.’

‘How would they do that?’