I’m silent for a moment, wondering if they think Andrew is a suspect. ‘It’s possible. Andrew told me she set him up at the surgery. Accused him of touching her inappropriately. He said she had a crush that he didn’t reciprocate, which I find impossible to believe. It would make more sense for her to have been angry with him about something.’

DS May looks puzzled. ‘But why would he invent something like that?’

‘His ego,’ I say briefly. ‘Or perhaps, for reasons of his own, he wanted to convince people that Hollie was unstable and irrational.’

She shakes her head slowly. ‘But why? Why would he want people to think of her like that?’

I shrug. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Did your husband say if James Hampton knew about his affair with Mrs Hampton?’

‘No, but it’s possible.’ My frown deepens. ‘It would explain the way James looked at him in the churchyard.’ I catch sight of the clock, getting to my feet in a hurry. ‘I’m sorry, but if there isn’t anything else, I have an appointment to get to.’

*

After they drive away, I tidy the kitchen and get ready to go out. Thinking about where I’m going, it seems fitting that the blue skies of earlier are clouding over, that the sunlight has gone; that a minute later, it starts to rain.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jo

Elise Buckley’s revelations about her husband throw up more questions for which there are no answers. His medical practice confirms there was an incident with Hollie and that there had been a note on her file about mental health issues and a suggested referral, which was never followed up.

I try to think. By her own admission, the Buckleys’ marriage has problems, backed up by the fact that the husband was having an affair. Not the first, either. As doctor to most of the village, Andrew Buckley has a window into everyone’s lives. But it isn’t just Elise who’s told me what he can be like. Ida Jones had suggested the same.

My instincts are telling me not to trust him. If Hollie knew about Stephanie’s affair with Andrew Buckley, it gives him a motive. And if she’d confronted him about it, who knows what may have happened.

The pool where Hollie was found in the grounds of Park House isn’t far from the Buckleys’ house. Clicking on my laptop, I bring up a map of the village, noticing for the first time that Park House, the Buckleys’ house, and Phil Mason’s, while physically separated by stone walls and tall trees, form the three corners of a triangle.

*

In the aftermath of Stephanie Hampton’s death, we question her husband. With both his wife and daughter dead, James is broken. Even so, on the subject of Phil Mason, he remains frustratingly silent.