‘Oh, I could give you a list as long as my arm. But it was mostly to do with planning. Roger was in construction, see? He had a lot of connections in that industry, and there was always talk of him greasing the wheels to push things through. There are measures in place to make sure that doesn’t happen, of course. Any new councillor has to declare interests, and usually those will stop them from sitting on specific committees. Roger never sat on the planning committee, for example, but he still had great influence. Some of the other councillors had particular projects or ideas they wanted to put through other committees, and Roger would — rumour has it — take on their causes in exchange for a… let’s say slightly more laissez-faire attitude to the occasional planning application.’

‘Vote swapping?’

‘Influence swapping, perhaps. He never directly approached me with anything like that, but then again he knew I wouldn’t stand for it. I’m on the council for the right reasons, I can tell you that. Besides which, it wasn’t just a case of exchanging a few votes.’

‘Oh?’ Caroline asked, her interest piqued.

‘I never saw anything. Not directly. Again, this is just rumour and hearsay, and there’s plenty of that on local councils. But there were occasional mentions of brown envelopes being passed beneath tables.’

‘You mean Roger Clifton bribed other councillors to pass planning applications?’

‘I wouldn’t want to cast aspersions or make accusations. All I can tell you is what I’ve been told. And no, those people didn’t accept the money. They wouldn’t have told me if they had, but I think we can safely assume there must have been others who did accept it and who’ve stayed quiet. He had his friends on the council, there was no doubt about that, but for the most part he wasn’t particularly well-liked by the members and was always seen as a bit of a wide-boy.’

‘Is that normal around here?’ Caroline asked.

‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

‘I mean, it’s a rural area. Small. Everyone knows each other. I came from London, and the corruption on the councils there was bad enough. I imagine in a place like this there’s a fair bit of behind-the-scenes discussion and decisions reached before meetings even take place, no?’

Barbara Tallis didn’t need to say a word. Her face clearly conveyed the answer.

‘Well that went well,’ Dexter said as they got back into Caroline’s car a short while later.

‘I don’t know what it is with people round here,’ Caroline said, sighing as she put on her seatbelt. ‘She’s not the first person to get the hump with me recently. I mean, I know rural communities are backward, but I didn’t think they still did the whole “you’re not local” thing. Sometimes I reckon I’d feel more welcome in North Korea.’