“It’s OK, Jett,” I said reassuringly. “I’ll come back tomorrow morning, OK?” There were things I wanted to do, and none of this lot were going anywhere. They would keep. Maggie Rossiter might not be so keen to talk if I waited till she’d got her emotions under control.

Chapter   16

I was in the Colcutt Arms by half past twelve. It turned out that the only questions Jackson had for me related to what I was doing back at the manor and what I’d done for Jett in the past, nudge nudge, wink wink. I didn’t like his innuendoes, and suspected he was trying to needle me into an admission of some sort. Obviously, he’d got no more change out of Bill than he had out of me. At least he wasn’t challenging my version of the discovery of the body yet.

It wasn’t just relief that drove me to the local pub. I was after information. I spotted the members of Her Majesty’s Gutter Press in the lounge bar, and gave it a body-swerve. What the saloon bar lacked in creature comforts it made up for by the complete absence of journos. If I was going to go into my chatty passing-motorist act, I didn’t want an audience.

The harried barmaid who served me seemed as glad to escape from them as I was. She bustled through from the lounge when I pressed a bell on the bar and pushed a strand of bottle blonde hair from her forehead. She was in her forties, and looked shell-shocked to find herself in the throes of a lunchtime rush.

“Busy today,” I said sympathetically as she poured me a St. Clement’s.

“You’re not wrong,” she replied. “Ice?” I nodded. “Last time we were this busy of a dinner time was Boxing Day.”

“Bad business up the road,” I remarked as I sipped my drink. She was happily leaning against the bar, relieved to escape the clodhopping probings of the press. I hoped my questions fitted in the category of Great British Pub Gossip.

“That poor woman!” she exclaimed. “Do you know, she was in here last night with a friend of hers, sitting in a corner of my lounge

My ears pricked up at the news of Moira’s meeting in the pub, but I didn’t want to pounce too eagerly. “I sometimes wonder if it’s all the security that attracts them,” I responded, playing along with the Passing Vagabond theory. “You know, like a challenge or something.”

“Well, all I can say is we’ve never had any trouble in this village till we had so-called rock stars living here.” Her mouth pursed, revealing a nest of wrinkles she’d have been mortified to see in a mirror.

“Do they come in here much?” I asked casually.