‘You haven’t yet told me what she died of.’

‘A stroke – according to Dr Moss.’

‘I’m not at all sure,’ said Wexford dryly, ‘how one sets about giving someone a stroke. Would you give them a bad fright or push an empty hypodermic into them or get them into a rage or what?’

‘I really don’t know.’ Nurse Radcliffe looked a little put out and as if she would like to say, had she dared, that to find this out was Wexford’s job, not hers. She veered away from the actual death. ‘Mrs Wrangton and her daughter – that’s Mrs Betts, Mrs Doreen Betts – they hated each other, they were cat and dog. And I don’t think Mr Betts had spoken to Mrs Wrangton for a year or more. Considering the house was Mrs Wrangton’s and every stick of furniture in it belonged to her, I used to think they were very ungrateful. I never liked the way Mrs Betts spoke about her mother, let alone the way she spoke to her, but I couldn’t say a word. Mr Betts is retired now but he only had a very ordinary sort of job in the Post Office and they lived rent-free in Mrs Wrangton’s home. It’s a nice house, you know, late Victorian, and they built to last in those days. I used to think it badly needed doing up and it was a pity Mr Betts couldn’t get down to a bit of painting, when Mrs Wrangton said to me she was having decorators in, having the whole house done up inside and out . . .’

Wexford cut short the flow of what seemed like irrelevancies. ‘Why were the Bettses and Mrs Wrangton on such bad terms?’

The look he got implied that seldom had Nurse Radcliffe come across such depths of naivety. ‘It’s a sad fact, Mr Wexford, that people can outstay their welcome in this world. To put it bluntly, Mr and Mrs Betts couldn’t wait for something to happen to Mrs Wrangton.’ Her voice lingered over the euphemism. ‘They hadn’t been married all that long, you know,’ she said surprisingly. ‘Only five or six years. Mrs Betts was just a spinster before that, living at home with Mother. Mr Betts was a widower that she met at the Over-Sixties Club. Mrs Wrangton used to say she could have done better for herself – seems funny to say that about a woman of her age, doesn’t it? – and that Mr Betts was only after the house and her money.’

‘You mean she said it to you?’

‘Well, not just to me, to anybody,’ said Nurse Radcliffe, unconsciously blackening the dead woman to whom she showed such conscious bias. ‘She really felt it. I think she bitterly resented having him in the house.’

Wexford moved a little impatiently in his chair. ‘If we were to investigate every death just because the victim happened to be on bad terms with his or her relations . . .’