“Umph! Well, the congregation had better expect to parade on Sundays with umbrellas raised,” Redfyre grunted. “And wait till they get a whiff of the droppings. It’s not a good preparation for the Sunday roast. Mark my words—there’ll be a backlash. But in any case, I shouldn’t worry too much. Looking at this scene of activity—Great Heavens! Can that be a punt pole they’re poking out the trefoils with?—what they are actually doing is not encouraging, but discouraging the bats. The creatures are not tolerant of disturbance. Wherever they are poked at and annoyed by these fur, fin and feather enthusiasts, they will pick up sticks and move. In my book, the FFFs present a much bigger challenge to the pipistrelles than the new agriculture. Devastation and depopulation follow in the ladies’ wake. But they don’t know it. They bang the drum and redouble their efforts.”

Redfyre cut short his sentiments. Surely that had been MacFarlane speaking?

“You may express your views to Lady Laetitia, then, for here she comes. You’ve been spotted, Redfyre . . . Ah, my dear lady, may I present to you our friend, neighbour and guardian angel, Detective Inspector John Redfyre.”

She ignored the vicar and seized Redfyre’s right hand in both of hers in an overfriendly manner. “Hardly any need for an introduction, I think. I know you from Sunday services, Redfyre. You have a lovely baritone. I’m Laetitia Lowestoft. Your aunt Henrietta is a great friend of mine. She often speaks of you. At last our paths cross!”

Laetitia was known to him by sight. “Once seen, never forgotten. Sadly,” the super had sighed. She was slender and tall, standing eye to eye with Redfyre, and though well into her thirties, a strikingly good-looking woman. Unfashionably long, glossy dark hair had been persuaded to coil and twine around her head, endowing her with the authority of a Greek goddess whose sphere of influence was of the mind rather than of the flesh. Her white linen blouse was immaculate, her jewellery restricted to no more than one military sweetheart pin, carefully positioned just above her actual heart. He allowed his eye to skip fleetingly over the pin, having polite regard to its placing on a charmingly uncorseted bosom, just long enough for him to identify its regimental source. He recognised the silver eight-pointed star with its central red cross as the emblem of the Coldstream Guards. A “lady” by rank, in her own right by birth, she was unmarried. The badge, worn with pride almost ten years after the war, told her tragic story to the world.