‘Evidently.’ Carole stood up brusquely. ‘I think we should probably cease to meet, Adrian. It sounds like you have a lot to sort out with Gwyneth.’

‘Yes, I have. But we can’t stop meeting.’

‘If she’s as jealous as you say, she’ll begin to think that there’s something between us.’

‘She already thinks that.’

‘What!’ Carole was thunderstruck.

‘And in a way it’s true.’

‘In what way?’

‘I think I’m in love with you, Carole,’ he admitted.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ she said, as she strode back towards the High Tor.

Her conversation with Adrian Greenford had given Carole a lot to process. If Gwyneth wasn’t actually disabled, if she could move around, and if she was as jealous of Carole as he’d said, then perhaps it was she who had delivered the poisoned pen letters …? She could easily have gone out of the back garden gate of Wharfedale to the back garden gate of High Tor … God, maybe it was Gwyneth who had smashed the back windscreen of the Renault in the first place?

But Carole wasn’t allowed time to pursue these thoughts. Even before she had reached her front gate, Jude had come rushing out of Woodside Cottage to greet her. Carole herself wouldn’t have done that. She would have waited till she was back in High Tor, then rung next door to suggest their meeting. But each to her own. She had got used to Jude’s impulsiveness. It did still feel rather Northern, though. Maybe it had been increased by her recent visit to Ilkley.

‘I had a thought I wanted to run by you,’ said her neighbour.

‘Over a cup of coffee?’

‘Please.’

The Aga gave a degree of warmth to Carole’s functional kitchen. It was never going to be a cosy room but, with Gulliver snuffling through his doggy dreams on the floor, it felt almost welcoming.

‘My thought was,’ said Jude, ‘that I should get back in touch with Tom Kendrick.’

‘Nothing to stop you. But I’m not sure how much he could add to what he told us in Brighton.’

‘I just wondered what interaction he had with Bill Shefford when he brought his car in for servicing. The more we can find out about Bill’s behaviour in the days before his death, the better.’

‘Fine. It’s certainly worth asking. We don’t have many other avenues of enquiry open.’

‘No. Well, there is another. I was just wondering …’

‘Hm?’

‘Whether you remember anything else significant about when you were there in the garage – you know, the morning he died?’

Carole let out an exasperated sigh. ‘We’ve been through this time and again, Jude.’

‘Yes, but there might be some little detail …’