‘It was just after I moved to Spilling when it was in the papers, ’ said Mary. ‘Made me wonder what sort of area I’d moved to, but I don’t think there have been any policing scandals since, have there?’ She smiled. ‘You’re a one-off.’ Seeing Charlie flustered and at a loss, she added, ‘Don’t worry, it makes no odds to me. You’ll have had your reasons, no doubt.’

‘No doubt,’ said Charlie brusquely, ‘and obviously I’m not here to talk about that.’

‘Well, you’ve picked the wrong house if your visit’s community-related. You won’t find much of a community round here. And, such as it is, I’m not part of it. I’m an outsider who drinks funny tea.’ Mary waved the green Twinings box at Charlie. ‘You should have seen their faces in the corner shop when I asked them to stock it. Anyone would have thought I was proposing to drink babies’ blood.’ She raised her cigarette to her thin lips. Her index and middle fingers were stained a dark yellow, almost brown.

‘No, it’s you I want,’ Charlie told her.

‘Then I know why.’ The response was smooth and instantaneous. ‘You’re here to ask me about a man I don’t know. A man called Aidan Seed. DC Christopher Gibbs came on Friday for the same reason, and DC Simon Waterhouse on Saturday. Unlike you, they didn’t pull bits off my tree.’

‘I didn’t . . . The tree’s dead,’ said Charlie.

‘Taking its pulse, were you? If dried flowers can be beautiful, why can’t dried trees? I like my garden. I like my dead tree, and its pot. Look at this.’ She led Charlie over to the wall that separated her house from the one next to it. There was something protruding from one of the cracks that looked like a green rose, but with petals that were oddly rubbery, almost cactus-like, pink-edged. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Mary. ‘It’s called a sempervivum. It’s not there by accident or neglect. Someone planted it so that it would grow out of the wall, but you could easily mistake it for a weed. I’m sure you did.’

‘Can I come in for a few minutes?’ Charlie asked, feeling as if she’d lost any potential advantage she might have had. She wished she was in her office, ‘helping’ Counsellor Geoff Vesey to draft his letter and questionnaire—writing them for him, in other words. Vesey was Chair of the Culver Valley Police Authority, an organisation that monitored, among other things, public confidence in the police. Charlie’s confidence in him was zero; the man couldn’t even come up with a list of questions on his own.