‘How did it ending make you feel?’

‘Really bad. He meant the world to me and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.’

She inhaled a long, ragged breath and exhaled slowly. James paused for a few seconds to allow her to compose herself before continuing.

‘So Mr Jenkins was furious with you because you were indiscreet about the affair and mentioned it to one of the elderly gentlemen you visit in your role as a carer? A man named Ron Curtis.’

‘It was a huge mistake and I regret it,’ she said. ‘But I visited Ron the day after I ended it with Charlie. I was in a proper state, and when he asked me what was wrong I broke down and poured my heart out to him. He had no idea about the affair and I told him not to tell anyone. But I should have known that he would. And that it would eventually get back to Sonia.’

James was about to ask another question, but she interrupted him.

‘Are you aware that Charlie went to see Ron yesterday, after he left here?’ she said.

‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, he did. Ron phoned me afterwards to have a moan. He was really cross because Charlie barged into his house when he opened the door and yelled at him. He told Ron not to spread gossip about him again and called him a mischievous old bastard.’

‘I’ll need to go and talk to Ron Curtis. Do you have his address?’

She gave him the address and he wrote it down in his notebook.

‘Is it true that Charlie was stabbed repeatedly by whoever attacked him in the field?’ Janet asked. ‘Nobody seems to know exactly what happened. All kinds of rumours are circulating.’

James decided not to reveal details about the murder and concluded the interview by asking her where she was last night around the time Charlie Jenkins was murdered.

‘I had an early night,’ she said. ‘I went to bed after taking a sleeping pill and woke up about ten this morning. I didn’t hear what had happened to Charlie until earlier this afternoon.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It seemed curious to James that the Curtis name had come up twice during the past couple of days.

First Annie’s uncle said that he saw Daniel Curtis hanging around outside the school on Friday evening. Then it emerged that Janet had told Daniel’s father Ron about her affair with Charlie Jenkins, which had sparked an almighty row after Ron passed it on to someone else.

James was now wondering whether it was significant that Charlie was murdered only a matter of hours after he angrily confronted Ron Curtis in his home.

Had the old man sought retribution or got someone else to seek it for him? It didn’t seem likely, but James had to acknowledge that it wasn’t inconceivable.

Ron Curtis’s bungalow was on the outskirts of the village between a doctor’s surgery and a small garden centre. James told the uniformed officer to wait in the patrol car and headed towards the front door. There were no cars on the driveway and he wondered if that meant Ron’s son Daniel wasn’t in.