‘Who?’ asked Ben and Clovis together.

Thea explained. ‘I think he must be local,’ she concluded. ‘He walks his dog around here.’296

‘It is very bizarre indeed,’ said Clovis. Thea sighed at this statement of the obvious. Was it possible she was going off the man? Was he revealing hidden shallows, as Barkley would certainly believe, if she knew what was going on?

‘Ashes,’ mused Ben, his gaze on the ground. ‘What do we know about ashes?’

‘They’re heavier than they look. Sterile. Hopeless as fertiliser. Usually in very fine pellets rather than dust, but it does vary. Eighty per cent of people dying these days are turned into them.’ Thea rattled off these facts with complete confidence.

Ben stared at her. ‘Um …?’ he said.

‘Oh – didn’t we tell you? I’m married to an undertaker,’ she said blithely. ‘I just assumed you’d know that.’

‘Wow! You are an interesting person, aren’t you! Wow!’ He was pink with admiration. Then he gave himself a shake. ‘So – you must know whether it’s possible to extract DNA from them. Ashes, I mean.’

‘It obviously isn’t,’ she said, feeling slightly less confident than before. ‘They’re cremated. Burnt at very high temperatures. Totally dead. That’s why they’re no good as fertiliser, even though people will insist on burying them under roses, poor things.’

‘The people or the roses?’ asked Clovis, with a fatuous grin.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Ben, ignoring him. ‘And is it true they really do give you back your actual person? Or is it all just chucked in together and everybody gets a shovelful?’297

‘According to Drew, they’re scrupulous about that. They wait until the furnace has cooled down after every cremation, and scrape out the ashes, one person at a time. All carefully labelled and any instructions followed to the letter.’

‘That’s reassuring,’ said Clovis. ‘But I’m still glad my dad was buried in your field, without the fiery furnace being involved.’

‘So what do we do now?’ asked Thea, having waited in vain for Ben to say it.

They had gone back to the car, but made no move to get into it. ‘No idea,’ said Ben. ‘Except I should probably try and get hold of Uncle Dick, to tell him I’m here.’ He pulled a face. ‘Something’s not right, is it? Something to do with my family, I mean.’

‘It’s a red herring,’ said Clovis. ‘Nothing to do with Thea’s murder.’

‘Obviously. But we can’t just ignore it, can we? I mean – why were Gwen’s ashes in that barn in the first place?’ He stared hard at Thea, as if trying to read the answers in her face.

‘Well, if she’s the cause of all this family disagreement, then perhaps it made sense to keep her remains in a neutral place,’ she suggested slowly. ‘Perhaps some members of the family remember her fondly, and set up the little altar to her. It’s rather a nice idea, in a way.’

‘So why move them now?’ asked Clovis.