Still, Jude didn’t say anything. Though her client was housebound, she still had a lively network of fellow geriatrics in Fethering. And if she started accusing someone of Bill Shefford’s murder, it would be round the village in no time. But surely, however much she disliked Billy, she wasn’t about to say he killed his father?

No, she wasn’t. Rhona went on, ‘And you don’t have to look far to work out who sabotaged the gearbox, undid the screws so that, the minute Bill touched the thing, it came crashing down on his head.’

‘Who?’ asked Jude weakly.

‘Well, the new wife, of course. The “Mail Order Bride”.’ Jude hadn’t got the energy to object to the usage. Besides, she had found that attempts to get some understanding of political correctness into her older clients never worked.

Rhona eagerly continued her narrative. ‘She traps Bill into marriage. She gets him to change his will in her favour. She—’

‘Do you know for a fact that he’d done that – changed his will?’

‘I don’t need to know it for a fact. I know it happened.’ The logic was suspect, but it didn’t stop Rhona. ‘And then – this is the giveaway, isn’t it? – the new Mrs Shefford starts doing evening classes in car maintenance. Now why would someone like her want to know about car maintenance?’

‘Since she had married someone who ran a garage, it seems to me quite logical that—’

‘No, no, she only needed to get enough mechanical knowledge to work out a way of killing her husband that looks like an accident. Then, while nobody’s in the workshop, she loosens the screws and – what do you know? – she inherits the lot.’

‘Rhona, I really must say that—’

‘There’s no two ways about it,’ the old woman pronounced definitively, ‘Molly or whatever her name is – she murdered Bill Shefford. I’ve told you before, you can never trust a Chink.’

‘This is becoming a habit, Carole,’ said Adrian Greenford as he approached her table in Starbucks, flat white in hand. He gestured to the chair opposite. ‘May I?’

‘Please …’

‘Thank you. No, we must be careful.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Meeting in public in a place like Fethering. People will talk.’

‘Oh. Yes.’ Carole felt herself colouring. She had never had any aptitude for banter, particularly if it came with a hint of the sexual.

‘Anyway, how’ve you been?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’ As ever, she wanted to move on quickly from discussion of herself. ‘And you? Getting settled in, are you?’

‘Slowly. Everything takes longer than you imagine. Tradesmen don’t come when they say they will. And then, of course, with Gwyneth being in the wheelchair, she can’t help as much as she’d like to.’

‘Oh, of course. I’d forgotten about that. I’m so sorry.’