She looked back at the screen, but the news-reader had moved on to another item, something about petrol prices.

‘It’s gone off now.’

‘Fuck’s sake, darling. If I don’t get finished in the shower, I’ll be late home. Fiona will throw a bloody fit.’

Stella took no notice of his mood, or his swearing. Darren was all mouth. She knew she had total control over him.

‘They were doing a bit about the woman who got shot in the village the other night.’

‘Oh, that. Yeah, I heard about it.’

He turned and began to head back towards the shower, clutching at the towel to keep it in place. His backside was too big, excess fat padding out his hips. Darren thought he was fit, but he spent too much time driving, or sitting around with his mates drinking beer.

‘It said the police are looking for a car. And a man that someone saw in the village that night.’

Darren hesitated with his hand on the door of the shower cubicle. ‘Good. They’ll get the bugger that did it, then. We can’t have blokes walking about shooting old women dead like that.’

‘She wasn’t all that old,’ said Stella. ‘Sixty-odd, they said. It’s nothing these days.’

‘If you say so.’

Darren slipped off the towel and went back into the shower. The water had started to trickle from the shower head, but she knew he heard her when she spoke again.

‘I reckon it was your car that someone saw,’ she said. ‘Daz, I think it’s you they’re looking for.’

‘Give over.’

‘I think you should go to the police,’ she said.

‘You must have got it wrong. It wasn’t anything to do with me.’

‘I’m only telling you what it said.’

‘Well, what did it say exactly?’ he snapped.

‘I can’t remember exactly. It was something about a blue Vauxhall Astra. That’s your car, isn’t it?’

‘Well, it might be,’ said Darren. ‘What else did it say?’

‘A man in a parka – that was it. Aged about thirty-five.’

‘I’m not thirty-five.’

‘You look it, though.’

He gave her an incredulous stare. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘It was you, Darren,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Well, it sounded like you. Your car, and a man in a parka, seen in the village about the time of the incident. That’s exactly what it said. I think.’

‘And they reckon this man in the parka did the shooting? That’s ridiculous, Stell. That’s stupid.’

‘No, that wasn’t quite it.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Why can’t you remember anything properly? You’re so bloody thick, Stella. I don’t know why I bother with you.’

‘Piss off, Darren.’

He stamped off sulkily, but came straight back again. ‘I need to know exactly what they said, Stella. This is important.’