‘Then you need to go to Mr Kassam’s house as a matter of urgency. And if you look hard enough, I think you’ll find a copy of the most recent Borlasian magazine. And it will have precisely one page missing. Page 74.’

‘I’m sorry, you want me to do what?’ Tanika asked.

‘It’s the proof that Andy Bishop faked Ezra Harrington’s will, because that page lists the names of two people who died the month before they apparently witnessed Ezra’s will.’

‘Andy Bishop forged the witness’s signatures?’

‘Got it in one. But Andy was unlucky, from his point of view. Because both of the people he’d chosen had gone to Borlase’s Grammar School back in the day, which is hardly a surprise. There are only two local schools here, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that anyone in Marlow went to Borlase’s. So, a year after Andy had forged Ezra’s will and got away with it, and was about to pocket six hundred and fifty thousand pounds from the sale of Ezra’s house, little did he know that the latest edition of the school magazine would list the names of the two witnesses to Ezra’s will in their obituaries section. And that it would say clear as day that they’d died the month before the date of Ezra’s will. Even worse for Andy, Iqbal was sent a copy of the magazine because he’d spent a year at the school himself.

‘As to what happened next … I suppose we won’t ever know exactly. But I can well imagine Iqbal idly flicking through his copy of the magazine when it arrived and seeing that the two people who’d witnessed Ezra’s signature had both died. Remember, Iqbal already believed there’d been foul play. Ezra had promised to leave his estate to him but, at the last minute, had left it to his solicitor. And now, over a year later, Iqbal found himself holding evidence in black and white that both witnesses of Ezra’s will had been dead at the time.

‘So what did he do? Well, I think he must have contacted Andy. Told him he knew about his crime. And then what? Did Andy offer to share some of Ezra’s cash to buy Iqbal’s silence? Or did he flat-out deny everything? Who knows? But what we do know is that Andy now had a cast iron, copper-bottomed, gold-plated motive for wanting Iqbal dead. He had to kill him to silence him. To keep hold of the six hundred and fifty thousand pounds inheritance he’d tricked out of Ezra.’

‘Okay, give me a few seconds, Judith. This is quite a lot to take on board. Are you serious about all this?’