‘What about the discovery? Why on earth did Vicky dig up the body with the excavator after having reburied it there?’

‘She didn’t have any choice. Trevor Collier, the replacement surveyor at Aqua Western, instructed them to lay a pipe where it should have been on the plan, not the cheaper shortcut version the Ticketts and Ozzy had built. Vicky thought they had a fighting chance of getting away with the deception, even after digging up Tomas Valdovas, so long as the body was badly damaged in the process. And I think that’s just about right. It was only the more specialist forensic techniques that showed that the body was of a young man, not of a fifty-two-year-old.’

‘So what did the Ticketts think?’

‘I think at first they genuinely thought the body was a new discovery. It wasn’t recognisable as the man they buried. But then various bits of information, leaked principally by the archaeologist, made them realise it was the same person. They just kept quiet about it, but it made them more determined to get the money they felt they were owed from Aqua Western. If not from Ozzy, who they couldn’t find, then from Arrowsmith.’

‘Did they get the cash? The water company had blocked the payments, hadn’t they?’

‘After they kidnapped Arrowsmith, and he saw where they planned to put him, he gave the Ticketts the banking details and passwords for his own company, where he’d channelled the funds. The transfers were just taking place at the time they were arrested.’

‘So the new vicar was completely innocent?’

‘Yes.’ Gillard took a sip of wine. ‘But it took co-ordinating all the statements of the various Willows and Ticketts to be sure of it. Two families torn apart years ago by the murder of Henry Willow were later bound together by a shared secret over a second death, that of Tomas Valdovas.’

Sam was smiling at him. ‘Speaking of secrets, I’m going to share one with you.’ She leaned forward and kissed him. ‘Craig, I’m pregnant.’

Gillard’s face broke out into a huge grin. He held his wife closely, and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m thrilled, Sam. This is just the news I’ve been hoping for.’

‘It turns out I’m already two months gone. Our child should be born next April.’

Epilogue