‘Yes,’ said Thea. ‘You told me.’

‘Did we?’

Thea realised she’d made a second blunder in two minutes. She was conflating the information she’d found on the computer with what had been said face-to-face. ‘I think you did,’ she said. ‘At least I got that impression, the way you were all so knowledgeable about the names on the headstones.’

‘Mm.’ Norma Chadwick was eyeing the house behind them with considerable interest. ‘How can you stay here after what happened?’ she burst out. ‘Aren’t you absolutely terrified?’

‘Not really. There’s no reason why they should come back for me, as far as I can see. And I can lock the doors now. Whoever it was must be long gone by this time, anyway.’

‘Mm,’ said the woman again. Then she turned to look 272over her shoulder. ‘You’ve got more visitors,’ she remarked.

Two men were walking along the road towards the house. Thea and Norma were standing just inside the gateway, on the small area of gravel left unoccupied. The builders’ van and Thea’s borrowed car took almost all the parking space – which had been reduced by the cement mixer and skip that were part of the building work. The men were fifty or sixty yards away, their faces quite easy to recognise. But Thea was sure she had only seen one of them before. And he was smiling broadly.

‘Clovis,’ murmured Thea.

273

Chapter Twenty

‘Glad we caught you. This is Ben. He’s from Cumbria or somewhere,’ Clovis introduced his companion. ‘We got chatting up by the village hall. I could see there was no hope of parking here, with all this lot in the way.’

Thea merely blinked and waited for enlightenment. Norma Chadwick bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, like a teenager.

‘I’m Norma,’ she said. ‘Hello, Ben. Come to see what you can find out about the murder, have you? We were thinking you might not be able to resist.’

‘Auntie,’ said the young man, who appeared to be little more than a boy, when Thea gave him a closer look. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘It’s not up to me. You’ve come all this way again because you heard there was a murder, so it wouldn’t be very kind to try to stop you, would it?’ She turned to Thea. ‘He’s a very keen amateur detective, I’m afraid. Where he lives, there’ve been quite a few nasty crimes, 274which he’s been involved in. He actually witnessed one death, if you can believe that.’

‘Oh?’ Thea tried to decide whether she felt intrigued or hassled. Another amateur detective probably wasn’t going to be very good news, she concluded. If you counted Clovis, that made quite a little gang.

‘I did,’ the youth assured her. ‘And I’ve got some free time before going up to uni. I’m doing forensic archaeology, you see. Any experience I can get will be hugely useful. This man’ – he indicated Clovis – ‘has been telling me a bit about what happened here. Sounds as if there’s a real mystery.’ His eyes were shining. ‘Poor old Uncle Dick didn’t really want me to come back – it’s a bit crowded at his house at the moment – but I’ve promised not to be a nuisance.’