“You sure?” Sophie said, sensibly not reminding Lindsay who had first mentioned the m-word.

Lindsay nodded. “Look at this,” she said, waving the sheet under Sophie’s nose. “ ‘On the floor behind the passenger seat, one plaid travelling rug with large quantity of what appear to be dog hairs, white or blond in color.’ He’d never have had a rug in the car covered in dog hairs—he’d never have allowed a dog in the car. He was hopelessly allergic. And let’s not forget Laura’s dog was a golden retriever. And here; ‘On the floor under driver’s seat, two Magic Tree air fresheners.’ Ian hated air fresheners—they used to really set his chest off, yet here we have not one, but two. And the final nail in the coffin, Soph; ‘In offside door pocket, one Ventolin inhaler, approximately half-full.’ That’s the clincher,” she ended triumphantly.

Sophie frowned. “I don’t understand. Surely, if he had another inhaler in the car, he would have used it in so acute an attack?”

“That’s what you’d expect, isn’t it?” Lindsay said. “But Ian didn’t keep his spare inhaler in the door pocket. He kept it in the glove box. I know, because he used it when we were driving up to Blackpool. He had one in his jacket, of course, but he’d taken that off while he was driving, and he used one from the glove box. There were actually two in there, I noticed. But look at the list of what was actually in the glove box; “One torch, one packet tissues, one pair sunglasses, one owner’s manual, half packet extra strong mints, one blue Biro, one Michelin map of the Pas de Calais, one photocopied street plan of central Blackpool.” No mention of inhalers at all. When Laura set up Ian for the kill, she realized that it would be suspicious if there was no spare inhaler in the car. So she just moved it from the place where he’d expect it to be and put it somewhere it would be found afterwards.”

“That’s a pretty big jump, Lindsay,” Sophie protested. “I mean, couldn’t Ian have tried to use the inhaler, lost control of the car and just dropped it, letting it fall into the door pocket?”

Lindsay scowled. “It’d be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”

Sophie was saved from getting into an argument by the arrival of their lunch. Lindsay’s haddock was almost too big for the stainless steel salver it arrived on. “Thank God you didn’t order the giant one,” Sophie said. Her eyes widened further as her own massive portion of halibut swimming in a viridian sea of mushy peas was plonked unceremoniously in front of her along with a pile of white cotton wool bread and butter.