Jocelyn seemed to feel no matching sense of upset. 206‘Don’t forget I’m married to one. They’re not all like that.’

Privately, Thea had always thought Alex was rather inclined to be humourless, if not actually stuffy. He had other defects, which had brought him close to public acrimony a few years earlier – but had quickly seen his mistake and behaved perfectly ever since, as far as Thea knew. But he had remained forever tainted in her eyes, and she’d done her best to avoid him. She changed the subject slightly, saying, ‘That poor dog! I don’t imagine she gets much affection lavished on her.’

Jocelyn was lukewarm about dogs and regarded Thea’s enthusiasm for them as unreasonable. ‘It’ll be fine. All it wants is for him to take charge and give it some exercise. Dogs are like doormat wives – they can’t do enough to please their beloved master. They’re pathetic.’

‘At least he didn’t catch us in the barn. He might have called the cops on us. He couldn’t have realised that we’d been in there.’

‘That wouldn’t have mattered. You could have pulled rank and revealed your intimate friendship with a detective superintendent. Actually, I doubt if he would. I think he was rather shaken to come face-to-face with you. He took the offensive because he was worried you’d start asking him awkward questions.’

‘No,’ Thea protested. ‘He can’t have any reason to feel worried.’ Then she hesitated. ‘Although he was there on Saturday, when I found Grace. And he didn’t appear to be in a very good mood. Maybe he’d been trying to find her, using his dog as a tracker.’

‘Mark my words. He’s probably rushing off to pack a 207bag and disappear to the Orkneys as we speak.’

Thea stopped to think for a moment. ‘I didn’t get that impression, actually. I thought he was just irritated by all the publicity and disturbance. He didn’t have to give me his card, did he?’

‘Bluffing,’ said Jocelyn. ‘He hopes it’ll make you think he’s got nothing to contribute, so you won’t bother to tell the cops about him.’

‘In that case, I’ll text Gladwin first thing tomorrow and dob him right in it.’

And then Jocelyn really did giggle. ‘It’s so nice to see you,’ she said. ‘We ought to do this sort of thing more often.’

Back at the house, they both faced up to the harsh fact of a recent murder right there, above their heads. ‘You’d think there’d be a ghost,’ said Jocelyn with a shiver. ‘I’m not sure I could stay here on my own.’

‘I don’t have much choice. Besides, it doesn’t really bother me. If it had been somebody I knew and liked, that might be different. But she was just a stranger, who might have been telling me outrageous lies, for all I know.’

‘Like what? You haven’t told me anything at all about her.’

‘Because I’ve just spent hours telling Clovis the whole thing. I can’t go through it all again. Even Drew doesn’t know all the details.’