‘I don’t know of any reason why anyone should want to murder her,’ said Miss Brewis. ‘In fact it seems to me, if you know what I mean, quite impossible that such a thing should have happened. I can only think that to some unbalanced mind, the fact that she was to be the murdered victim might have induced the wish to make her a real victim. But even that sounds very far fetched and silly.’

Bland sighed.

‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’d better see the mother now.’

Mrs Tucker was a thin, hatchet-faced woman with stringy blonde hair and a sharp nose. Her eyes were reddened with crying, but she had herself in hand now, and was ready to answer the inspector’s questions.

‘Doesn’t seem right that a thing like that should happen,’ she said. ‘You read of these things in the papers, but that it should happen to our Marlene –’

‘I’m very, very sorry about it,’ said Inspector Bland gently. ‘What I want you to do is to think as hard as you can and tell me if there is anyone who could have had any reason to harm the girl?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that already,’ said Mrs Tucker, with a sudden sniff. ‘Thought and thought, I have, but I can’t get anywhere. Words with the teacher at school Marlene had now and again, and she’d have her quarrels now and again with one of the girls or boys, but nothing serious in any way. There’s no one who had a real down on her, nobody who’d do her a mischief.’

‘She never talked to you about anyone who might have been an enemy of any kind?’

‘She talked silly often, Marlene did, but nothing of that kind. It was all make-up and hair-dos, and what she’d like to do to her face and herself. You know what girls are. Far too young she was, to put on lipstick and all that muck, and her dad told her so, and so did I. But that’s what she’d do when she got hold of any money. Buy herself scent and lipsticks and hide them away.’

Bland nodded. There was nothing here that could help him. An adolescent, rather silly girl, her head full of film stars and glamour – there were hundreds of Marlenes.

‘What her dad’ll say, I don’t know,’ said Mrs Tucker. ‘Coming here any minute he’ll be, expecting to enjoy himself. He’s a rare shot at the coconuts, he is.’

She broke down suddenly and began to sob.