Clovis coughed and they both looked at him. ‘I don’t think I’m being silly,’ he said. ‘I’m only saying what the police probably think. They’ll be hoping there’s a direct link to the animal traffickers, and when they solve that, they’ll get someone to admit to killing Grace at the same time. So they won’t waste too much effort from this end, if you follow me.’

‘All that could well be true,’ said Ben. ‘But it’s no way to conduct a murder investigation, all the same.’ He grinned. ‘So it’s down to us, then.’

Now he was being silly, Thea thought. Just a boy detective with too much time on his hands. But Ben was still speaking. ‘We have to be methodical. Timing, 285distances, evidence. How much have the police actually told you?’

‘They couldn’t find anything wrong with her shoulder. She had a wedding ring round her neck. It had initials engraved on the inside. G. B. and K. A. W. We’re guessing the G stands for Grace, and the K. A. W. is her husband.’

Ben nodded and made a note. ‘What else?’

‘I told you – not a thing. They can’t find any trace of her on a flight into Manchester at the end of last week. But what if she was lying to me about her name? Then all they’ve got is what she looks like. It must be a big job to analyse every face on every flight.’

Again the young man nodded. ‘Possible, but time-consuming. I’m surprised they even attempted it.’ He thought for a moment. ‘So we don’t even know her nationality for sure? Did she have an accent?’

Thea shook her head. ‘She sounded like an ordinary English person.’

Ben blew out his cheeks. ‘She was certainly good at keeping a secret. Now let’s go back to Clovis’s point about how the killer or killers knew where to find her.’ He waved a hand invitingly at Clovis.

‘Well,’ the man responded. ‘As I said before, they could have set up a remote camera in a car, that would show them the minute Thea left the house.’

‘Blimey!’ said Ben, admiringly. ‘That’s right. Did you notice a car or van parked nearby?’ he asked Thea.

She shook her head doubtfully. ‘There’s a bit of a lay-by just across the road, where there’s often something parked. That would be the obvious place. I 286don’t remember about Sunday, though. I wasn’t taking any notice of that sort of thing.’

‘The police should question all the neighbours, then,’ the youth decreed.

‘Except one of the neighbours might be the killer,’ objected Clovis.

‘That would be a big coincidence,’ said Ben. ‘After all, nobody knew Thea would take the woman back to her house.’

‘It’s not my house,’ Thea corrected him. ‘Remember?’

‘Ah! Can we go back over that, then? Whose house is it?’

‘A woman called Tabitha Ibbotson. She’s a professional pianist – quite famous, apparently. She knows Detective Superintendent Gladwin, who’s a friend of mine. She set this whole thing up, thinking I could do with a break from domestic duties.’