But then she caught herself. Nancy Molloy was a very dangerous person and this could all be part of some cunning ploy to draw Bailey in and get her to drop her defences. Opening up fully to someone like Nancy Molloy would be a very foolhardy thing to do indeed.

‘I still feel her loss today,’ said Bailey, keeping it vague. ‘Some things you can’t forget, however hard you try.’

‘She was your blood,’ said Nancy. ‘And blood is important. I value it above everything else. And I can tell that you’re the type who values it as well. Your family are all you’ve really got at the end of the day. That’s why I have to find out who killed Adrian. And when I do…’

A pheasant flew out of the bushes. Nancy lifted the shotgun with a fluid dexterity and blasted the bird out of the sky. Bailey jumped at the loud report. The pheasant exploded in a mid-air puff of feathers and blood and cartwheeled into the ground.

Nancy marched over to it, Bailey in tow. Lying there in the grass, the pheasant, crippled beyond any kind of salvation, was still moving, twitching and panting its last breaths, its glistening viscera exposed, its small eyes darting in fear, acutely aware of its own impending demise.

Nancy lowered her shotgun so the muzzle was barely a few centimetres away from the trembling bird. She turned to look at Bailey.

‘As I was saying, when I find them…’

She pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and the pheasant disintegrated in a final explosion of gore and feathery down.

‘… I’ll show them no mercy.’

Bailey swallowed, shocked by Nancy’s ferocity. Nancy stalked off, leaving Bailey staring down at the decimated remains of the pheasant. If Bailey had been having any doubts over Nancy Molloy’s pitiless nature, this starkly laid them to rest.

Wendy came up beside Bailey and looked down at the dead bird. She made an ‘ugh’ face and sneered at Nancy’s departing back.

‘I thought she was supposed to like animals.’

‘I think that only applies to Pomeranians,’ muttered Bailey. She might have been quipping, but more than ever she now realised that to Nancy Molloy, her family was the most important thing, to the detriment of almost anything else.

When the shoot finished, they headed back to the cars. Rick beckoned Bailey aside, leading her away from the others, taking her over to the large black Range Rover Velar she had parked next to. With the two of them standing there alone, he took a key fob out of the pocket of his Barbour jacket and unlocked the car. Opening the rear, he lifted up the floor of the boot and took a brown paper bag out from beneath the spare wheel. He handed it to Bailey with an expectant, almost excited look on his face.

The bag was heavy, instantly causing her wrist to sag. Bailey peered inside. It contained a handgun. The sample. As expected.