She made her mind up. Whatever she might have agreed with Jo, she needed to tell Crabby that she’d gone to the police with information about the antiquities dealer. He might never speak to her again, but that was a risk she’d have to take. If the nighthawks were prepared to break into her flat, who knew how much further they might go. And if she might have put him in danger’s way, the least she could do was to let him know about it. But that was going to have to wait. She didn’t have a phone number for Crabby – come to that, she didn’t know if he possessed a phone. Did Druids have phones? She’d track him down and speak to him as soon as she got back to Bailsgrove.

But there was nothing she could do about that right now. And in the meantime there were other things she had every intention of concentrating on this weekend. Picking up her phone, she plugged Clive Painter’s name into a search engine. Stuart Craig’s view of Beth may have been soured by their relationship but what had her head of department made of her? Maybe he’d be able to give her a more dispassionate view of the real Beth Kinsella.

The departmental website said he’d officially retired last year, but he still had an honorary position at the university. Further down her search she came across his name again. He was giving a talk today.

Professor Emeritus Clive Painter. 2.30 p.m. St Thomas Centre, Brampton, Chesterfield. The Church Spire: its place in medieval English architecture.

Brampton couldn’t be that far away, could it? And she had nothing else to do with her afternoon.

St Thomas Centre turned out not to be the dank and dreary church hall of her imagination but an ultra-modern conference venue with a rustic limestone facade that she supposed the architects had thought echoed the surrounding hillsides. Clare had slipped in at the back of the room in an attempt to be inconspicuous. But looking around the half-full room she appeared to be the youngest person there by several decades.

A small, wiry man with a hairline that had long since departed, Clive Painter cut a somewhat lonely figure in his oversized gold-rimmed spectacles. He was perched behind a podium he could barely see over, surveying the cavernous auditorium. The organisers, it seemed, had been hoping for a somewhat larger audience. The main event turned out to be a pleasant enough way of whiling away a wet Friday afternoon. Painter was an animated and engaging speaker. He clearly knew his subject back to front. And as far as Clare could make out, the majority of his audience seemed to have stayed awake for the entirety of the lecture, which was a not inconsiderable achievement given the age of most of them.