He nods. ‘Yes. We met up in the Funky Raven, as that’s near where his mum was living, and he was staying with her. The dogs were expensive. Over a grand. I gave him a deposit and he promised there would be a litter due in a few weeks. We wouldn’t be able to take the puppy, of course, until it was a few months old, but we could come and see the litter and reserve one. I gave him three hundred quid up front.’

Margot sits back down on the sofa again. ‘And what happened?’

‘He was bloody lying, wasn’t he? The fucking con artist. There was no pregnant bitch. I asked around and apparently he had a dog. A male dog. So I met up with him again and asked for my money back. But he continued lying about it, making excuses. Anything, rather than give me the money. I threatened to knock his block off if he didn’t return it.’

‘Oh, Adam.’

‘Well,’ he growls, ‘it was out of order, Marg.’

Her mind races. ‘Even so, a note like that after he died was a bit extreme.’ There is dirt under her fingernails from cleaning out the horses earlier. She picks at it distractedly. ‘Especially with a murder investigation going on. What were you thinking?’

He shakes his head, his eyes bloodshot. ‘That’s the thing. I wasn’t thinking straight. Heather was in the hospital … They were saying she’d killed him. I was just so angry, with her … with Clive … everyone. It was stupid, I know. I blamed Clive. For the money … and then for what happened after, with Heather killing him … I think he was on her radar because of that. You know she’s not been well,’ he points to his head, ‘mentally. She flipped. She was angry with the world. She had a bee in her bonnet about Flora’s disappearance. She blamed herself for that … I think it all got too much. So, the night after Heather did …’ he gulps ‘… what she did, I came home and scribbled the note on a piece of paper to get the wording right, then rang up a florist and told them it was a joke for a friend’s birthday.’

‘And Deirdre? Where does she fit into all this? She must have known that Clive wasn’t really breeding from his own dog. Was she in on the scam too?’

‘I don’t know what she thought, Marg. She was an old lady. Maybe she didn’t know what he was up to.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the police any of this after … after …?’

‘I didn’t want them to think that was why Heather killed them.’

‘Over a dog.’ She laughs. ‘But that’s ridiculous.’

He frowns. ‘I know that, but the police would try to find any spurious link, wouldn’t they?’