‘Of course I did. I haven’t got another car.’

‘So, when did you get it back?’ asked Jude.

‘Day after the accident. That’s when they said I’d get it back. Serviced, valeted, looked like new.’

‘“Valeted”?’

‘Yes, inside and out. Looks brilliant.’ Carole wondered who’d done that. From the look of the second-hand cars on its forecourt, Shefford’s did not run to a ‘spivver’.

‘And any evidence that might have shown it had been booby-trapped was effectively removed?’ she asked.

‘Guess so.’

Although she knew the answer, Carole still asked, ‘Who did the service?’

‘Obviously … Billy Shefford.’

FOURTEEN

‘Well, Shannon wasn’t going to get any cooperation out of her, was she?’

Jude was once again exercising her palliative-care skills at Waggoners. And Rhona Hampton was once again denigrating Bill Shefford’s widow.

‘So, what, you say Shannon asked if she could look through the house for a will?’

‘Yes, well, that’s reasonable, isn’t it, Jude? She’d been on to Bill’s solicitor and they had no record of him having made a will. He never was that good with paperwork. Never much bothered about paperwork, come to that. He relied on Frankie to keep the business on the right side of the law. You know, she looked after the invoices … and the tax … and the Health and Safety Executive stuff …

‘So, anyway, Shannon rang Malee and asked if she’d found some informal hand-written will round the house … because they can be legal, you know. There was a case recently where some old bloke had scribbled his will on a McDonald’s paper napkin and that was legal, so it can happen. And Malee had said she’d looked round the house and found nothing. So, then Shannon asked if she could have a look. And Malee said, “No.” Just like that. I mean, what kind of a way is that to treat your … what? Stepdaughter-in-law?’

‘She’s within her rights. It is her house.’

‘But is it, Jude? Is it? Surely that depends on the will. And if there isn’t a will, then who knows whose house it is?’

‘I think you’ll find, Rhona, that under British law, if a woman is legally married at the time of her husband’s death, and he’s intestate – in other words, he hasn’t made a will – then she inherits all of his estate.’

‘That’s not fair, is it?’

‘It may not be fair, but it’s the law. And I take it Malee was legally married to Bill?’

Rhona grimaced. ‘Yes. Only a registry office thing. Back last February. I was invited, but there was no way I was going. Shannon and Billy went. They said it felt more like a funeral to this side of the family.’

‘And what about her side of the family? Were any of Malee’s relatives there?’

‘No.’