Paula and Ralph had been a popular couple in the village, and Ralph’s death had been broadcast on the local news the previous night: ‘Death at Minstead,’ the newsreader had intoned, over a backdrop of Minstead House looking particularly glorious. At least they hadn’t shown the actual pond.

‘Now it’s really like sodding Midsomer Murders here,’ Paula said savagely after she’d been accosted for the third time. They had often laughed about how Midsomer-ish the village was, with its chocolate-box cottages and petty, complicated village politics. Now they even had a mysterious death to boot.

Meredith couldn’t muster a smile.

They reached Paula’s house, a stocky-looking whitewashed 1920s villa on the far edge of the village, wisteria climbing around a front door that was usually flanked by two big stone lions, which Ralph had loved and Paula hated. But as soon as the door came into view, they knew something was wrong.

Meredith did a double take. The right-hand lion was still there, standing proud, but the left-hand one had been smashed; its head was severed from its body and was lying next to it, staring up at the sky.

She put her hand on Paula’s arm. ‘Paul … look at that.’

She waited for Paula to confess that she herself had done it in a fit of grief – although how she’d have had the strength to, without pushing the whole statue over, Meredith couldn’t imagine. But as she watched Paula’s eyes widen with shock and incomprehension, she knew that this was the first Paula had seen of it too.

‘It was probably Jackson,’ Paula said uncertainly. ‘He’s been so upset. He never liked those lions either.’

Meredith wasn’t so sure. She had a very bad feeling in the pit of her belly, and, as Paula opened the front door and dumped her bag in the hallway, she realised she was holding her breath, waiting for Jackson to appear and confirm or deny it.

‘Jack?’ called Paula. ‘I’m home. What’s happened to the lion?’

Jackson appeared at the top of the stairs – a gangly tousled youth, eyes pink-rimmed. He was usually handsome, in an unformed sort of way, but today he looked like a pale facsimile of himself.

He shrugged. ‘It was like that when I got home. I thought you’d done it. I know you hated them…’

‘It wasn’t me,’ Paula said, kicking off her shoes and sitting down wearily on the bottom stair, leaning her head against the wall with an expression of utter defeat.

Meredith’s heart sank. ‘I don’t want to worry you,’ she said, ‘but I think you need to let the police know.’

22

Pete