I shrugged. ‘Not really. But I am concerned about the way my boss is handling it. When he’s fired up, he’s like a ball of anger—it makes any kind of reasoned conversation impossible.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Which I suppose is why he does it.’ ‘I can—’

‘No! You can’t. I have to handle this myself.’ I stopped walking and looked at my old boss with a sudden nostalgic yearning for the days when Pip was the one I took problems to. Back then, discussions were solution-based, not blame-based.

I nodded towards the house and started heading back. Pip bent over, grabbed a stick and flung it. Waffles bolted like a puppy, seized the stick, and pranced back with it. Just before reaching Pip, he dodged around her and took off.

‘Scallywag,’ said Pip.

There was that word again.

Lunch was a fine affair. I had baked a quiche and tossed a salad. The teacake was delicious, and the teapot got a workout throughout the cold afternoon. I stoked the fire and the farmhouse kitchen was toasty warm against the world.

Nan was quite expansive about the Millard murder, since she had two police officers as lunch companions. Before her rise through the ranks, Pip had worked in Homicide and told Nan she knew the detectives who’d investigated it originally. Nan looked puzzled.

‘They weren’t here for long then,’ she said. ‘Bill Wheeler seemed to do most of the investigation, such as it was.’

‘From memory, it looked pretty cut and dried,’ Pip said. ‘Husband kills wife. Happens every week.’

‘Every week!’ said Nan, astonished. ‘Why isn’t it ever in the newspapers?’

Pip shrugged. ‘Not newsworthy as far as the media goes, but let me tell you, when you attend these cases, and see women mown down in their own homes, you’re hard-pressed to think of anything more newsworthy.’

‘We kept it out of the papers here,’ said Nan. ‘Not because it wasn’t newsworthy, but because we needed to protect that little girl.’

I asked Nan why Carmel Millard was persona non grata as far as the Mowbrays were concerned.

Nan looked sad. ‘Sometimes it’s just too hard,’ she said. ‘And there was the incident at the funeral …’

Pip and I looked at each other and said together: ‘What incident at the funeral?’

Nan laughed and patted her chin with her linen napkin. ‘It was the talk of the town at the time. Brett’s father, Gordon Millard—’

‘The arsehole,’ I broke in.

Nan raised her eyebrows.

‘Sorry,’ I muttered, ‘but I saw him beat Brett when I was a kid.’

Nan looked surprised. ‘Really? You never told me that.’

‘I was afraid if I did, you wouldn’t let me go there again.’

Nan nodded. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘In light of that, what happened at the funeral makes more sense.’