‘I’ll tell you straight. I didn’t know what to do. But there was no point lying to her. She knew it was me alright. So I told her. I told her everything.’ He looked at the two women. ‘I thought she’d never speak to me again. I was sure she was going to turn me into the police. But do you know what she did?’ Both women shook their heads. ‘She just turned to me and said, “Why couldn’t you wait, Crabby?”

‘But the worst bit was when she told me she’d already found evidence that Bailsgrove had been an important place for the ancestors. And she would make sure there was no way it could be built on if it was the last thing she did. I tell you I didn’t know what to make of it. But I looked into her eyes, and you know what, I believed her. She loved that place as much as I do. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to that place, but I really thought it was for the best.’

Clare asked, ‘Did Beth say what it was she’d found?’

He shook his head. ‘Nope. Never got the chance. It was the next day I found her. Up there in the grove. And, see, that’s what I can’t make no sense of. The day before she was so determined. And excited too, about whatever it was she’d found up there.’

Jo cut in, ‘Crabby, can I get this straight. Are you telling us you don’t think Beth Kinsella was suicidal?’

‘The day before she died Beth was happier than I’d ever seen her. And there’s something else that wasn’t right.’ Jo and Clare looked at one another. ‘It was the hare.’

Jo said, ‘Whose hair?’

Clare said, ‘Not whose hair, what hare?’ She had a horrible feeling she knew what Crabby was going to say. She remembered reading about it in one of the newspapers. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, except to wonder how deranged someone must be to kill one.

Jo looked confused.

Crabby turned to face Jo. ‘When I found Beth there was a dead hare lying just in front of her. There was blood all over it. Someone had hacked at its throat with a knife, its head had been bashed in and there was this bit of orange baler twine round what was left of its neck.’

Jo said, ‘From what I read in the papers there were dead animals lying all over the place. What’s so special about the hare?’

‘I know folks say Beth was as mad as a box of frogs, but they didn’t know her like I did. And even if she was, she never would’ve harmed a hare.’

Jo said, ‘I don’t get it. Why not?’