‘So, you won’t be staying for tea then?’ asked Miss Tefeidiad.

Beverley urgently squeezed my arm, so I told them we couldn’t.

‘I have to get back to the investigation,’ I said.

‘That’s a shame then,’ said Miss Tefeidiad.

And me and Beverley got while the going was good.

‘Not a word,’ said Beverley, who was so keen to get away we were halfway back to the car before she realised that she was walking barefoot on gravel. We paused long enough for her to extract a pair of flip flops from her sausage bag and then walked briskly the rest of the way. She didn’t relax until we were in the car and the River Teme was a kilometre behind us.

‘That was close,’ she said.

‘What was all that about?’ I asked.

She pulled off the Tesco bag and shook out her locks, flicking me with water and filling the Asbo with the smell of clean damp hair.

‘I thought it would be quicker to get here by water,’ she said, rummaging in her carryall and bringing out a yellow and blue beach towel. ‘Should have used an M&S bag,’ said Beverly and started squeezing out her locks in bunches. ‘That bitch Sabrina failed to mention the weird sisters were still in residence and I ran right into them at Burford.’

‘They didn’t like you trespassing?’

‘I’m lucky to be alive,’ said Beverley. ‘You don’t mess with someone’s river without getting permission first.’

‘You should have driven up,’ I said.

‘I’d still have had to cross the Severn, and if you do that you’ve got to stop and give some respect to Sabrina or she throws a right strop,’ said Beverley. ‘I thought that if I was getting my hair wet I might as well take a short cut.’

‘What are you doing out here, anyway?’ I asked.

‘I’ve been deputised,’ she said. ‘And sent out to assist in your investigation.’

‘Who by?’

‘Who do you think?’ she said. ‘Your boss wanted someone out here who knew one end of a cow from the other.’

‘And that’s you, is it?’

‘One of us spent a year rusticating with their country cousins,’ she said. ‘And do you remember whose bright idea that was?’ She bunched her fist and punched me in the shoulder – hard enough that I almost put us in the hedgerow. ‘And did I get one visit?’

‘It was a difficult time,’ I said.

‘It was the Thames Valley,’ she said. ‘Not the moon.’

My phone rang – it was Dominic.

‘Guess who I’ve found,’ he said.