“I’m not saying there’s no fights. I’m not saying there isn’t them that knock their wives about, but it’s all among each other. If Mrs. Farrar’s death is going to put a person off taking on the shop it’ll be a poor do.”

“That’s just what I would have thought. No insult intended.”

“None taken. You won’t find so many people to talk to today. They’re at the funeral. I would’ve been there myself but I have an invalid indoors.”

Mrs. Sugden knew she shouldn’t have come until Mrs. Farrar was decently laid to rest, and a passage of days. But now she was here, she must get on with it. Mention of the murder had not gone down well. She would keep her questions as to whether the shop was well patronised and whether a woman who charged fair prices might make a living. That would open a conversation.

A tall thin woman, wearing dark clothes and black felt hat, alighted from a heavy bicycle at the gate of the end house in the row. As she walked along the path she picked up a carpet beater and walloped a rag rug that hung on the line, as if its dust had tried to choke her as she passed by, and she must exact revenge.

Mrs. Sugden approached. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. Nice rug.”

The praise of her rug drew a more friendly response than Mrs. Sugden had expected.

“Made by my great gran and it’ll see me out.”

In an instant, Mrs. Sugden put the woman’s philosophy of life into words. “Waste not, want not.”

This pleased the woman. She paused in her beating. “That’s what I say. Young uns today, they want everything new.” She pointed to a stool by the door. “I stuck the leg back. It’d been thrown out for last year’s bonfire.”

“Good for you.” Mrs. Sugden’s admiration was genuine.

Mrs. Sugden noticed that the woman wore no wedding ring, but a signet ring on her right hand. Now that they had reached agreement that thrift mattered, the woman commented that she had seen the estate agent’s car. “They wasted no time putting Mrs. Farrar’s shop out for rent. I’m just back from her funeral.”

“I wouldn’t have come if I’d known the funeral was today.”

Mrs. Sugden would have a word with Mrs. Shackleton, and Jim Sykes, too. They must have known.

“Well she had a good funeral. The vicar gave a fine service. I saw her lowered into her resting place and I came straight back. I’m not one for funeral breakfasts and long faces.”

“You’ll have known Mrs. Farrar well?”