‘I don’t know.’ He looked anguished. ‘What if the solution to the whole thing is just a few more taps away? I’ll feel really stupid if I miss it now, having got this far.’

‘Well, it’s driving me crazy,’ she grumbled. ‘I just wish we could speak to Gladwin. We should put the radio on and see whether there’s any more news about the pangolins. If that’s been sorted, she’ll have some time for this.’

‘I can check the news on here,’ he said, in a mildly scornful tone. Again he tapped and swiped, before announcing, ‘News blackout. That means it’s all kicking off as we speak. You won’t get any sense out of her if she’s on that case.’312

‘Well, I’ll try Caz, then.’

‘Isn’t she part of it as well?’

Thea explained the free-floating role of the detective sergeant, as well as she could, and Ben absorbed every piece of information as if he were a sponge. ‘You know what?’ he said at the end. ‘You’ve been completely on your own through all this, haven’t you? Where I come from, there’s a proper little gang of us. Three, usually. My girlfriend and her boss are always right there, so we bounce everything off each other. It makes things a lot easier.’

‘Sounds great. I’ve usually got my dog with me,’ Thea said idiotically.

‘What about your undertaker husband?’

‘Sometimes he gets involved,’ she said vaguely. ‘The first time I met him, he’d just found a body. But he’s not a natural detective, really.’

‘Not many people are. I’m not sure that you are, when it comes to it.’

‘I’m very nosy, and I’m good at getting people talking. I’m not always very sympathetic, though.’ She sighed. ‘And I think my brain’s past its peak.’

He drained his tea, but did not return to his computer searches. ‘We need more than I can get, sitting here. Who can we go and talk to, I wonder?’

‘I’m sure your relatives are wondering where you are by now.’ The prospect of him disappearing back to his aunts and uncles or cousins or whatever they were was not a happy one. Clovis had deserted her, leaving her feeling foolish and puzzled. Ahead lay several hours of 313evening, with nothing to do but phone her husband and try to pretend she’d had a nice ordinary day.

‘I could ask who the other man was – in the churchyard on Monday. I don’t expect he’s important, though. And I could pick some brains about the Wheelwrights. Stuff they haven’t put on the website.’

‘You don’t think, then—’ She stopped, unsure as to how much she dared say. ‘I mean, hasn’t the whole thing got alarmingly close to home? Will you tell them what you’ve just found out?’

‘Whoa,’ he protested. ‘Slow down. It’s not that urgent. I think we ought to sleep on it, and see if it looks clearer in the morning. I’m not going home till Sunday. And no – I won’t tell my people anything yet. It’s all too murky still.’