‘Just in case, though,’ Rosalind said. ‘Let’s go slow.’

Caro eased the door open, her breaths short and shallow. Nothing.

She peered inside at the darkness of the room.

‘Looks empty,’ she said, and reached for the torch in her pocket, clicking the button for full beam.

The torch’s warm glow filled the main room of the small, red brick cottage. It was furnished with a small wooden table and chairs, two armchairs in front of a wood-burning stove, and open plan to a tiny kitchen with a sink, oven, fridge and microwave. It had a cosy, homely vibe, from the cross-stitched sampler on the wall, to the blankets laid over the arms of the chairs. There were even blue and white striped jars on the kitchen counter holding baking staples, although Caro couldn’t imagine why anyone would choose to cook there instead of in the main kitchen.

Another doorway appeared to lead through to a small bedroom, and an adjoining bathroom. It seemed an ideal, tiny holiday home for a night or two. An extra guest house, she supposed – not that Aldermere, with its countless bedrooms, needed it.

‘You’re right. No sign of Clementine here tonight,’ Rosalind commented. ‘If she was ever here at all.’

‘Felicity seemed pretty sure.’ Caro peered around the bedroom door, but found only darkness.

‘Felicity is an excellent liar.’ There was a decided bitterness in Posy’s voice.

‘Come on,’ Caro said. ‘We need to search the place. I’ll take the bedroom, Posy in here, Rosalind, the kitchen.’

In the bedroom, she flung the door open and began searching through drawers, yanking the covers from the bed, looking for something, anything, that would explain what Clementine had been doing here, after she supposedly left Aldermere.

There was a small wardrobe, built in between the window and the bathroom door, with a deep drawer underneath it. She pulled it open, her heart almost beating out of her chest. Here, she knew, would be the answers she was looking for.

She blinked. At the bottom of the drawer sat a bundle of clothes, wrapped in a mustard-yellow scarf. A scarf she recognised.

A scarf she’d last seen Clementine wearing as she drove away from Aldermere.

This was it! Proof that Clementine hadn’t left after all. That she could still be here, in fact …

The thought made her look up, as a breath of air from an open window brushed across the nape of her neck.

Why was the window open? And when had the bedroom door closed?

Caro turned, too slowly to make out many details of the figure in front of her, as a hard, heavy object connected with her temple, and the room went dark.

Monday 30th August
Rosalind

Chapter Twenty-Two

‘The problem with you policemen is that you do rather get in the way of a good investigation.’

Dahlia Lively in Never Underestimate A Lady

By Lettice Davenport, 1930

They didn’t hear a scream.