She unlocked the front door, and ushered the young man into the hallway. ‘We can leave it open for Clovis,’ she said.300

‘I’m not sure he’ll be coming,’ came the startling response.

‘What? What do you mean? Of course he’s coming.’

‘How well do you know him?’

‘Well enough.’ She felt defensive and utterly confused. ‘Why?’

‘Have you got a phone number for him? Address? Employment record?’

‘His number is in my phone. He called me a time or two. And my husband will have an address for him. We did his father’s funeral … oh!’ She flushed with embarrassment. ‘Maybe he hasn’t got it, after all. It was all very complicated. But I could easily find him if I wanted to.’

‘I might be wrong, but I don’t think so. He hasn’t seemed genuine to me from the first moment I met him.’

‘Gosh!’ she said weakly. ‘So what are you thinking? That he murdered Grace?’

‘No, no. I’m not saying that. But he does obviously have an unhealthy interest in the whole business. Luckily, I don’t think he’s very clever. Are you sure he actually likes you, by the way? Because I caught one or two looks that suggested otherwise.’

‘I don’t know. At the moment, I don’t really know anything at all. The ground’s just given way under my feet. But I was starting to wonder about him, believe it or not. You’re right – there was something secretive and a bit … withdrawn about him today. And maybe he thinks he has reason to be angry with me. He can get very angry.’ She blinked away a sudden rush of self-pity. ‘The first 301time I spoke to him, he was shouting and making threats.’

‘Well, he’s not here, is he? I think he was beginning to feel out of his depth around the point where we started eating our lunch, and it just kept on getting worse. So he’s baled out, the first chance he got.’

‘So that just leaves you and me,’ she said, with a brave smile.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

They sat at Tabitha Ibbotson’s dining table, using Thea’s sketch pad for the flow chart that Ben insisted on constructing. ‘It’s the way I do things,’ he told her firmly. ‘Can we start with everyone we know in the village?’

She blew out her cheeks. ‘That must be a lot of people. Don’t tell me you know them all?’

‘Actually, no. Just the relatives, basically. Right – let’s do it. Start with the Jacksons, Richard and Edward.’ He put the two names at the top of the page. ‘Then Auntie Laura. She’s married to Richard, but she’s got awful arthritis and hardly ever goes out. Edward’s wife is dead. Then Norma – her mother was Gwen’s sister, I think. Or possibly aunt. Who else?’ Again he tapped his front teeth with the pen.

‘What about the other people I met in the churchyard? A woman with a very straight fringe, and another man I haven’t seen again. Your Uncle Richard and Auntie Norma were there as well. Norma had a camera. I recognised Richard from his limp, when I saw him again. He says it’s his knee.’303