Margaret stood motionless, seemingly entranced by the contents of the cabinet. ‘Strictly speaking, company no longer. After the heads had been taken in battle, the tribesmen would treat them to preserve them then perform a ritual to incorporate the soul of the dead warrior into their own kin groups. The idea was to capture the strength of their enemies. Once the ceremony was over the heads themselves would be discarded. Or, as almost certainly happened in the case of these chaps, traded to some poor unsuspecting white fellow who thought they still had some element of meaning attached to them. Fascinating, aren’t they? I’m considering writing a paper on the comparison between these practices and head hunting in Iron Age societies.’ She turned towards Clare. ‘Now what can I do for you? I trust your weekend away went well. You certainly look better for it. Where did you go, by the way?’

Clare said, ‘The Peak District.’

‘Any reason for that particular choice of location?’ Margaret smiled. ‘It’s where David grew up, you know.’

Clare mustered a fixed smile in response. ‘I do know. But that’s not why I went there.’

Margaret said, ‘Oh,’ in a tone that suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced by Clare’s denial.

Clare cleared her throat. ‘No. I went there to visit Wrackley Cop.’

‘Wasn’t that the hill fort that Beth excavated?’

Clare nodded. ‘That’s right. I wanted to try to get a better understanding of the way Beth’s mind worked.’

‘You’ve been listening to David again. “Places make people and people make places.”’

‘No,’ Clare said, just a little too defensively. ‘Or at least, not entirely. I do have a mind of my own you know, Margaret.’

‘I know you do, my dear. I’m only teasing. And as it happens it’s an aphorism that I have a great deal of sympathy with – although it’s not the whole story, of course. But the important thing is, did it help?’

‘I think it did. And I met Clive Painter too. He drew a somewhat more sympathetic picture of Beth than Stuart Craig had. Did you know she spent years caring for her father, virtually single-handed?’

‘No. I had no idea. But then I really didn’t know her that well.’

‘Anyway, that’s not why I asked to see you, Margaret. I wanted to ask you what you made of this.’ Clare withdrew the folded sheets of A4 from her bag and handed them to Margaret.

Margaret stood reading them intently for several minutes. Finally she looked up at Clare. ‘I obviously recognise Stephen’s name but who exactly is James Douglas?’

‘He was a colleague of Stephen’s and he was his executor. They’d known each other for years. He was the best friend Stephen had. It’s James who’s been helping me to unravel the mess that Stephen left our finances in.’