‘There was!’ I shouted. ‘A blue suit and good shoes and a bag hanging from one strap. Sprawled on the grass with his head turned to one side. I saw him. Felicity saw him!’

Temper flashed in his face. ‘Well mebbe he were there for a reason! You thought of that? There’s a bloody rocket base up the road. There are criminals from London running a casino not more’n a few miles away. Pike’s put his hands around enough men’s throats and he lives twenty yards from the church gate. Do you want to dig into all that muck? Do you?’

I was breathing hard. I felt like I was being told off and that immediately made me aggressively defensive.

‘If somebody’s done something wrong …’

‘You don’t care about the living!’ he snapped, jerking his head forward. ‘You walk past people like they’re stones. You’ve never come and knocked on a door and asked after a soul or even stopped to have a natter in the street. Yer walk past with your nose sniffing the clouds and now yer talk about what’s right and what’s not. Yer doing this for the thrill of it and to tek yer mind off yer lad.’

I wanted to hit him. I could see myself doing it – slapping my right hand across his face and feeling the sting on my palm. But his face changed before I could get to him. Regret rippled across his face. Shame.

‘I’m sorry …’ he muttered, dragging his hand back across his scalp. ‘I’m het up. There were no need.’

I felt like my legs were going to give out on me. I slumped down onto the armchair and felt the cold leather against my bare arms and the back of my neck. The hairs on my arms rose like sails and I found myself shivering, even as my cheeks burned.

‘She’s not like you think,’ I said, surprised to hear myself speaking so quietly. ‘She’s not some fragile thing.’

‘I know that,’ he said, whispering now, as if he was trying to make up for shouting so harshly. ‘She’s got iron in her soul and she can be stubborn when she needs to be. But there’s a difference between finding a bit more toughness, a bit more spark, and digging into a bloody murder, love.’

‘If Chivers had just come to talk to me …’ I began.

‘You ever think Chivers might know more than you, love? More than all of us?’

I didn’t reply. In truth, it hadn’t occurred to me. Did Chivers have an agenda of his own? Might he already know about the body and be deliberately avoiding taking a statement from me? Could he be in the pay of somebody a lot more powerful than the silly snotty girl up the hill?