‘To a quiet night in.’ David raised his glass, then leant forward and kissed Sally, who was curled up beside him on his living room sofa.

‘Amen to that!’

‘What shifts are you on next week?’

‘God knows. Makes no difference. Until the chief’s back from his heart attack – if he comes back – I’m on twenty-four-hour call. So right now I don’t even want to think about work. How about you – anything exciting happening in Ivory Towers?’

David took a large glug of his Syrah. ‘Looks like we may have avoided bankruptcy, if you can call that exciting.’

‘You’re joking. The university can’t be broke, surely. Not unless someone’s been fiddling the books.’

Sally looked genuinely shocked. Even after all this time, David thought, she still suffered from a rose-tinted vision of academia. He shook his head. ‘Not the university. The Hart Unit.’

Sally made no attempt to suppress a smile. ‘So Clare’s not such a whizz with the finances after all.’

He wished just for once she would at least try to disguise her resentment towards Clare. But he knew that the state of undeclared warfare that existed between the two women wasn’t going to end any time soon. He’d learnt to operate on what his grandmother would have called the ‘least said soonest mended’ principle where the two of them were concerned.

He took another slurp of his Syrah to prevent him from saying something he might regret before he replied, ‘She can’t magic work out of thin air. The housing game’s flatlining.’

‘What’s that got to do with your lot? I thought you were a research institute.’

‘Most of our work is commercial. It comes from the construction industry. That’s what finances the research.’

‘So, what are you planning to do about it?’

‘Margaret’s found us a job up in the Cotswolds.’ He had no intention of telling her about Clare’s involvement. That would only aggravate the situation.

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Bailsgrove.’

‘You’re kidding? The Bailsgrove. Where that weirdo hung herself.’

David placed his glass on the coffee table. ‘Beth Kinsella was a well-respected archaeologist.’

‘That’s not what the papers said.’

‘I’d have thought you of all people wouldn’t believe everything you read in the red tops.’

‘Oh, come on, David. Sometimes the facts speak for themselves. She was found strung up alongside a bunch of wooden carvings smeared with rabbit blood.’

‘Hare blood,’ he corrected her.

‘Whatever. It really doesn’t matter. It’ll be Hungerbourne all over again.’

‘Well, that didn’t turn out entirely badly now, did it.’ He smiled and leant forward in an attempt to kiss her.

She pulled away from him. Evidently she wasn’t going to be distracted so easily. ‘That’s not the point. What the hell were you thinking of?’