‘She was having affairs?’

‘Don’t be so surprised, Mr Hawthorne. She was an attractive woman back then. I half fancied her myself! There was something about her – the energy, the ambition. I don’t know. She used sex to get what she wanted. She wouldn’t let anything stand in her way.’

‘Was she having an affair with Frank Heywood?’

‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I can’t really tell you, to be honest. They were certainly close. He often took her with him to the theatre and that was how she got the idea she wanted to be a critic. I told her she was barking mad. Why swap real-life drama for a bunch of tossers leaping about on the stage? Anyway, she was too old-fashioned to be a theatre critic, too set in her ways. The first play she covered after Frank died was a lesbian love story and she slated it – not because it was bad but because she didn’t approve of the subject matter. I think she’d have been much better off sticking where she was, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’

‘It was Frank Heywood who introduced her to Moxham Heath.’

‘When the teacher got killed? Yes. That was Frank. He lived in the village.’

‘Was there any kickback from the book she wrote?’

‘God, yes! She had the Longhursts and their lawyers threatening her with libel. The Moxham Village Trust wrote letters. She even had the local MP involved. But it all went away, just as she knew it would. When you read her stuff, you may not like it. You may think it all a bit ghastly. But she knew what she was doing. She always judged it exactly right.’

‘How long was she the drama critic on the Argus?’

‘Less than eighteen months. She didn’t wait long before pushing off, but I sort of suspected that she was only using her position on the newspaper as a launch pad for better things. I’ve already said – she knew what she wanted. I didn’t want to give her the job, but she left me no choice. The week after Frank died – she wrote his obituary, by the way – she was in my office with her ultimatums. It was that or lose her altogether.’

‘What can you tell me about Frank Heywood’s death?’

Outside, it was getting dark. The stained-glass windows were slowly losing their definition, the Virgin Mary and her attendant angels fading into the shadows. Adrian Wells reached out and turned on an Anglepoise lamp.

‘It’s interesting you should ask me about that. I was talking about it only this week. I even suggested I might tip a wink to the police.’

‘You mean … Cara Grunshaw?’ I asked.

‘Who? I don’t know that name. It was just something that occurred to me …’

‘What?’ I hoped I didn’t sound too alarmed.

‘I’m sure you know, Frank Heywood died of food poisoning. Well, strictly speaking, the cause of death was heart failure. He smoked like a chimney and hadn’t done any exercise since the year dot, so he wasn’t in great shape. No surprises there. More to the point, he was eating at an Indian restaurant that was notoriously bad. The Jai Mahal near the St Nicholas Market. It was quite popular, particularly among Bristol students, but the health and safety mob had been in a couple of times and they weren’t impressed at all. Our food critic called it the Die Mahal.