As Suzie and Becks settled themselves in the punt with Emma sitting at the front, her pink tongue out, panting in pleasure, Judith took a bottle of champagne from the hamper, picked up a thin rope that was attached to the side of the punt and expertly tied a half-hitch knot around the neck.

‘What are you doing?’ Suzie asked.

‘We don’t want the champagne getting warm, do we?’

With a quick tug on the rope to check it was secure, Judith dropped the bottle in the river so it would drag behind them in the cooling water, picked up the punt pole, bent at the waist and pushed off, the front of the boat easing through the boathouse’s doors, the three women emerging into the morning sunshine.

‘Now this is the life!’ Suzie said as Judith kept the punt to the shallows on her side of the river.

‘Do you want a hand there?’ Becks asked.

‘Don’t worry about me. I’m stronger than I look.’

Becks looked up at the woman standing proudly on the bow of the punt, her cape flung back from one of her shoulders so she could better use the pole. It made her look like a roguish Musketeer, Becks thought to herself with a smile.

‘You can say that again,’ Suzie said. ‘I can’t imagine many old-age pensioners who’d disarm a killer with a tin of travel sweets and a pencil.’

‘I merely distracted him long enough for Emma to attack. And she only did that because you risked your life crossing the river.’

‘Nonsense,’ Suzie said. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’

‘I don’t think that’s true at all,’ Becks said.

‘And as for you, Becks,’ Judith said, ‘I’d pay anything to see the church’s CCTV footage of you smashing the regimental display and running around with a sword.’

‘Everyone was looking at me like I was mad,’ Becks admitted. ‘But all I could think was that we had to get to you. Although, one thing still puzzles me. I don’t understand why the frame was stolen from Stefan’s painting.’

‘Ah yes,’ Judith said with a smile. ‘That was Elliot, as we presumed at the time. And he didn’t mean to steal the frame, or want to, for that matter.’

‘So why did he?’