‘But, if I was thinking like a cold-blooded killer, wanting to booby-trap the car and use it as a murder weapon …’

‘Please think like that, Adrian.’

‘Very well. Then I would loosen one of those bolts – the ones that go through the rubber plate – completely, and the other one almost completely, so that the minute it’s touched, this whole heavy mass of metal comes crashing down on whoever is unfortunate enough to be underneath it.’ Adrian looked at her with a lopsided grin. ‘Is that too technical for you, Carole?’

‘No,’ she breathed with satisfaction. ‘It’s perfect. And would it require a lot of strength or advanced mechanical knowledge to do that?’

‘Not a lot of strength if you’ve got the right tools, which a garage like Shefford’s definitely would have. And not much advanced mechanical knowledge. Anyone who’d spent time working around cars would know how to do it.’

‘Ah.’

‘That was a very profound, sleuth-like “Ah”, Carole.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘I would. So now, I suppose, from my minimal reading of crime fiction, you make a list of suspects who might have had the technical expertise … and opportunity … to sabotage the Triumph Tr6 on top of Bill Shefford’s inspection pit.’

Carole felt a little taken aback. She was used to having such conversations with Jude and not with anyone else. And yet the idea of discussing the ‘case’ (as she found herself thinking of it) with Adrian Greenford was not without its attraction. Like her friendship with him, it felt exciting and slightly daring.

‘Well, I suppose we could do that,’ she conceded. ‘You start.’

‘I don’t know much about the opportunity side of it, who would have access to the garage, who’d have keys, so that they could set up the booby-trap when the premises were closed … which I guess is the way it would have been done.’

‘If it were done,’ Carole cautioned him.

‘If it were done,’ he repeated piously. ‘My guide in these matters is what I hear in the Crown and Anchor.’

‘A very unreliable source of information.’

‘I’m sure it is, Carole.’

‘In fact, for the engendering of fake news, Barney Poulton and his cronies could give both the Russian and American intelligence services a run for their money.’

‘Right.’ Adrian grinned. ‘From this very unreliable source then, two names emerge. One is obviously Billy Shefford. It’s common knowledge that he had had conflicts in the past with his father over the future of the garage. He sounded off in public on many occasions about how the old man was dragging his feet about making the changes that were needed in the business. Also – and this was from Barney Poulton, so is doubly suspect – there is a suggestion that Billy wanted his father out of the way before he had time to change his will in favour of his second wife.’