“Glad to hear it.” I glanced at my watch. “Now I really do have to get down to this meeting.”

He nodded. “I’m going too so I’ll walk you down. It looks as if we’ll be here until tomorrow at the earliest, so I might as well try and be of some use.”

So, I left the office for the second time, in different company, trotting a little to try to keep up with Jude’s lolloping walk.

We walked down past the graveyard, eerie in the fading light, gravestones emerging from a muddy lake like a scene from Poltergeist. It had stopped raining again, though who knows for how long. The times that it was dry, I found myself looking at the sky to see where the next rainclouds were forming.

“You’re going to have a hell of a clean-up job when the floods subside,” Jude remarked, golfing umbrella swinging redundantly by his side.

I agreed. “The community is good, though – they’ll pull together and help each other out.”

“So I’ve seen.”

At the bottom of the hill, the floodlit hall was in sight; a troupe of people heading in and out with blankets and trays of food.

“The main problem will be insurance, I expect,” I said. “We might have a few battles on our hands in the next few weeks.”

He smiled. “No better woman for it, I suspect.”

“I hope you’re right.”

I looked across at his face and realized I’d warmed to this gentle giant, but he was still the only person who had openly indicated his dislike of the murdered man. We were nearly at the hall. It was now or never if I wanted to ask him anything more. I might not get the opportunity again.

So, I just came out with it. “How well did you know Bob Jameson?”

He stopped walking. “Why?”

This seemed to be his standard response to any question to do with Jameson or his charity. Why was he deflecting so much?

“It’s just, you seemed to have rather strong feelings about him.”

He looked at me crookedly. “I might not have liked him very much, but I didn’t set a snake on him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that. But I did wonder why exactly you disliked him so much.”

He looked down. His expression had changed, as it always did whenever the dead man’s name was mentioned. “We knew each other when we were kids.”

“I noticed him calling you Julian in the pub,” I said.

Jude nodded with a scowl. “That’s my full name. Bob knew I hated it.”