‘Now the story I was told is this.’ At this point Sarah’s voice changed to convey a certain scepticism. ‘Half an hour later, which would be around 10.15 a.m., Callum came running up the road to the pub in hysterical tears, with bloody hands and bloodstains on his shirt and trousers. She said she was well used to this because he’s a boisterous child and always getting into scrapes. But this time there was a lot of blood. The child didn’t seem hurt, and she couldn’t understand where the blood came from. Callum was inconsolable, and kept talking about Tom. She dropped everything and ran back with the boy to Dove Cottage. There, in the back room, she found Tomas Valdovas dead and covered in blood. “I stabbed him by mistake,” the boy said. “We were playing cavalry.” That’s all he said. Having established that Valdovas was dead, Vicky stopped herself from ringing 999. Callum eventually explained that he was riding on Tomas’s shoulders when they were playing, with his lightsabre in his hand. Tomas tripped and toppled backwards and onto the child, whose weapon pierced his neck.’

‘A likely story,’ Gillard said.

‘Vicky Willow said she panicked. Callum was convinced he’d killed the man, but she persuaded him that Tomas wasn’t dead, but knocked unconscious. She didn’t want the child to have all that guilt. So she rang Guy, to bring fresh clothes for Callum, and then to take the boy back while she cleaned up. She washed the walls, pulled out the carpet and cut the bloody clothes off the body before washing him. She even put a dressing over the wound on the back of the victim’s neck. Guy came back and together they dragged Tomas back to his bedroom, dressed him in clean clothes, jeans and a shirt with a collar that hid the dressing. They put him on the bed and then called Aidan Tickett with the news that Thomas had died last night. “That punch in the head from Rory was the death of him,” she said.’

‘Very clever,’ Gillard said.