‘Feel free,’ said Thea recklessly. She hated to see dogs all shorn of their natural coats. But it was true that as the spaniel got older, her hair became more matted and in 59urgent need of daily brushing. Nobody in the family had acquired the habit of giving her so much attention – not even her devoted mistress.

‘It costs thirty quid,’ Drew complained.

‘Shop around. There might be cheaper places in Gloucester. We don’t always have to pay Cotswold prices.’

The conversation smoothly diverted into domestic details, followed by a few words about the forthcoming funerals. It lasted another fifteen minutes and successfully dodged any awkward moments where Thea had to choose how honest to be. She finished the call with sincere expressions of marital commitment and dedication, which Drew accepted a trifle coolly. ‘I’ll phone again tomorrow,’ she said.

Tomorrow would be Sunday, and Drew would take the children and dog out somewhere. There had been talk of Dudley Zoo, as an attraction so far unvisited. But they couldn’t take Hepzie there, which left it near the bottom of the list. Thea had deliberately avoided asking her husband what he was planning. It was not her business. Entertaining the children was a relentless task that she had adamantly refused to undertake for the next week. She didn’t even want to think about it.

But she was not at all satisfied or contented for the rest of the evening. She had landed herself in a pickle, as her mother would say, and not even Gladwin was available to help her out of it. In fact, it was tempting to blame Gladwin for it happening in the first place. She had urged Thea to take this job, and then dropped her into a situation that was barely tenable. Not having a car was ridiculous. Everybody 60had a car. It was like another limb – or a whole set of extremely necessary limbs. Now there was another woman in the house with her, also in urgent need of transport. The damaged shoulder had gone untreated, which was almost a crime in itself. Given the nature of little Barnsley, there was every chance that a doctor lived two hundred yards away, if they only knew it – although Grace would never have agreed to go looking for such a person.

The thought, however, sent Thea to her laptop. If in doubt, do some googling had become something of a mantra over recent years. To that extent at least she had cheerfully overcome her aversion to modern technology. She started with another look at the website featuring Barnsley Park and found it provided accommodation for numerous people in cottages scattered around the village. Units were available for a wide range of small enterprises. How easy it would be to set up something innocent-seeming, and then carry on a much less wholesome business behind that front. The set-up seemed almost to demand such behaviour. Tucked away behind rolling wolds and age-old hedgerows, never even suspected by passing tourist traffic and readily ignored by the locals, anything could be going on.