‘Doing evening classes in book-keeping, wasn’t she? I’m sure she got into my files, looking for some mistakes or dodgy doings, she may even have planted stuff on the computer. Incriminating stuff, so that Bill would be left with no alternative but to give me the elbow. That Malee definitely had her eyes on my job.’

Jude was surprised by the level of paranoia in the woman’s words. ‘If she did do that,’ she said, ‘and I think it’s very unlikely that she did, that still doesn’t mean she committed murder.’

‘It meant she had the opportunity to commit murder,’ Frankie insisted. ‘And she wasn’t just doing evening classes in book-keeping. Car maintenance as well. Why would she be doing that if it wasn’t to find out how to sabotage a car?’

Frankie’s logic was becoming ridiculous. Jude objected, ‘There are lots of reasons why she’d want to do car maintenance. If you marry someone who owns a garage, then it’s quite normal that you’d be interested in his work. You might even want to be able to help him out at times.’

‘Oh yes?’ Frankie very definitely took this the wrong way. ‘So, you’re saying she was after Billy’s job as well as mine, are you?’

‘I am certainly not saying that. I’m just saying that if anyone’s going to go around making public accusations of murder, they should be pretty sure of their ground.’

‘I am sure of my ground,’ Frankie countered. ‘I’d put money on the fact that Malee tampered with the gearbox fixing on the Triumph Tr6. She wanted to kill Bill and she wanted it to look like an accident.’

Carole joined the conversation. ‘If that was the case, and if there was any suspicion of foul play, then surely the police would investigate?’

‘Haven’t heard anything from the police,’ said Frankie. ‘And the garage had recently had an HSE inspection and—’

‘HSE?’ Jude queried.

‘Health and Safety Executive. Everything was up to date there. Then, obviously the ambulance people came. They seemed to think it was an accident. And there was a doctor.’

‘Who was the doctor?’ asked Carole. ‘One from the Fethering Surgery?’ She knew who they were, though she hadn’t been introduced to all of them.

‘I didn’t recognize him,’ said Frankie. ‘But apparently Bill’d been to see him quite recently. So, there was no problem about signing the death certificate.’

‘That sounds rather odd,’ said Carole. ‘Surely the body would have been taken by ambulance to the hospital and—?’

Frankie, however, didn’t want her narrative interrupted. ‘It was all above board, from that point of view. And, as I say, Health and Safety too. But it was made to look like an accident, so the police didn’t need to be involved. I haven’t heard a dicky bird from them.’