She was going to need all her resolve if the day was not going to lead to disaster. She needed to hold on to an idea of herself as a good dependable person. Her husband 161should be able to rely on her fidelity, and Gladwin needed her to contribute positively to the murder investigation. She must face facts and stay firmly in the real world. Such internal admonitions were tiring, she discovered. Combined with far too much thinking the day before, the unwonted earnestness was all a bit too much. She found herself craving some frivolity to counteract it all.

The problem, of course, was that frivolity would come in the form of Clovis, if she let it, and was therefore not to be entertained. Instead she must do her civic duty, protecting the house and helping the police. With this in mind, she waited for the builders and planned her morning.

Sid and Dave arrived at half past eight, their expressions slightly wary. She could hardly blame them for that after the shocks of the previous day. They were probably anxious to finish the work and go as quickly as possible. ‘Had a good night?’ asked Dave.

‘No problems,’ she reported. ‘Everything was nice and quiet.’

‘That’s good.’ He looked as if he did not entirely believe her. ‘Going out for a drive today, are you?’ He eyed the car in the driveway speculatively. Thea realised she had not explained how she’d acquired it.

‘The police have let me borrow it,’ she said. ‘Just so I can get some shopping when I need it.’

‘Nice,’ he said doubtfully.

‘I think I’ll go for another walk this morning. I’ll be out for lunch with a friend. The man who showed up yesterday – Clovis.’162

‘No more forensic bods coming here, then?’

‘Not that I know of. The trouble is, they’ve got another big investigation going on, and there’s nobody available to do a proper job on this one. It’s all wrong, you know. They can’t be everywhere at once, with all the cuts and restrictions.’

‘You’d think murder would trump all the other things, wouldn’t you?’

‘You would,’ said Thea. ‘But it’s not always very logical.’ She had had the idea of revisiting the business park, perhaps from a different approach, trying to understand how it operated. It had seemed obvious that Grace was afraid of going near it, because that was the point from which she had escaped. The policeman at Cirencester had said there were at least a couple of cameras with recordings they were looking at. The fact that they had requisitioned the recordings must have alerted the people at the park to their supposed involvement with the murder. Would that have made any guilty individuals nervous? The website had talked of offices and workshops and businesses of varying sizes, all sharing the cluster of attractive stone buildings. It was impossible to know how much of a community it was, and who exactly made use of it. If Thea simply walked up the front driveway and started to look around, from one unit to another, would anybody stop her? She had done similar things before, usually with impunity. But what could she hope to gain by it, a sensible voice enquired. Who would she speak to, if anyone? In what way could such intrusion constitute responsible behaviour?163