‘She would still have been dead,’ Grace Berensen pointed out.

Everyone fell silent at that unarguable fact. But then Ben went back to his entirely unauthorised questioning. Thea wondered why Barkley or even Richard Jackson didn’t stop him. ‘You didn’t hear anything at all about it on the news?’

‘No, I don’t bother much with the news. I find it only makes me angry.’

‘That’ll be because you’re a social worker,’ he nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

Thea abandoned any further pretence to be eating, and spoke to Caz. ‘What’s happening now? Are we still going over to the Corner House?’ The detective merely shook her head, as if to say Just wait a minute.

‘Richard?’ It was Norma who faced her distant 332cousin, with a puzzled expression. ‘Why are you here?’

‘So this young man can repeat to you what he’s been saying to me. You need to hear it for yourself, and tell him what absolute tripe it all is.’

Everybody looked at Ben, who lifted his chin, and said in a voice full of absolute conviction, ‘It was Uncle Richard who killed Karen Wheelwright.’

333

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘There!’ trumpeted the older man. ‘What do you make of that? The boy’s obviously lost his wits.’

‘You did, though,’ said Ben calmly. ‘Perhaps you should tell us how you hurt your knee. And how you’ve been in touch with a solicitor in Manchester who’s taken on your application to inherit the family farm, left by Gwendoline. How the only serious rival for it was Karen Wheelwright, whose father died this year, leaving her free to pursue her claim. Simon wasn’t interested, was he? But Karen most certainly was.’

Richard stared furiously at him. ‘You little snoop! Where have you got all this from?’

‘I admit I got into your computer and read the messages from Brock, Clinton and Dannington. Why go to a Manchester firm, I wonder? My guess is that any solicitor around here is either a relative of yours, or knows someone who is. It wouldn’t be safe to put anyone on the alert, would it?’

Richard turned to Norma, who was looking very 334pale. ‘So there you have it. Wild accusations without a shred of evidence. What do you make of it, eh?’

It seemed to Thea that the man was genuinely outraged. She had seen the way a murderer generally behaved when confronted with his crime. Mostly they went quiet, or began to tell a string of unconvincing lies. Sometimes they turned violent or tried to run away. She couldn’t remember one who had maintained such a dignified stance.

‘You should probably try to explain yourself, then,’ Norma said tightly. ‘Because I can testify to the fact that you were in that house on Sunday morning. I saw you from my bedroom window.’

‘Uh-oh,’ said Ben, slightly shakily. ‘We weren’t expecting that, were we?’ He looked at Caz and then Thea.

Thea was straining every nerve to make everything fit neatly into a coherent picture. The family inheritance … Gwendoline Wheelwright … Manchester … the business park … ‘Um …’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t you have mentioned that before? When the police questioned you on Sunday, for instance?’