He didn't wait for an answer and Mark remained where he was until he heard the latch click. Through the window he could see the discolored paving stone where animal blood had sunk into the worn surface. A yard or two to the left beside the sundial was where Ailsa had lain. Was the caller right? he wondered. Did people die of shock when truth was unpalatable? With a sigh he turned back to the desk and rewound the last message. It had to be Leo, he thought, pressing play to listen to the Darth Vader voice again. Apart from Elizabeth, no one knew so much about the family, and it was ten years since Elizabeth had been able to string two coherent words together.

"Do you ever ask yourself why Elizabeth's such an easy lay… and why she's drunk all the time…? Who taught her to debase herself…? Did you think she'd keep the secret forever…? Perhaps you thought your uniform would protect you? People look up to a man with bits of metal pinned to his chest… You probably felt like a hero every time you brought out your swagger stick…"

Sickened, Mark closed his eyes, but he couldn't prevent his mind playing relentless images of Captain Nancy Smith, whose likeness to her grandfather had been remarkable.

Dick Weldon found his wife in the spare room, making up beds for their son and daughter-in-law, who were arriving that evening. "Have you been phoning James Lockyer-Fox?" he demanded.

She frowned at him, stuffing a pillow into its case. "What are you talking about?"

"I've just been on to the Manor, and his solicitor said someone from here has been making abusive calls to James." His ruddy face was dark with irritation. "It flaming well wasn't me, so who was it?"

Prue turned her back on him to pat the pillow into shape. "You'll have a heart attack if you don't do something about your blood pressure," she told him critically. "You look as if you've been on the bottle for years."

Dick was well used to her habit of deflecting unwelcome questions by sticking the knife in first. "So it was you," he snapped. "Are you mad? The lawyer said you were panting."

"That's ridiculous." She turned 'round to pick up another pillowcase before flicking him a disapproving glance. "There's no need to look so huffy. As far as I'm concerned, that brute deserves everything he gets. Have you any idea how guilty I feel about leaving Ailsa in his clutches? I should have helped her instead of walking away. She'd still be alive if I'd shown some spirit."

Dick sank onto a blanket chest by the door. "Supposing you're wrong? Supposing it was someone else you heard?"

"It wasn't."

"How can you be so sure? I thought the solicitor was James till he told me he wasn't. It certainly sounded like him when he said 'Shenstead Manor.' "

"Only because you expected James to answer."

"The same applies to you. You expected Ailsa to be rowing with the Colonel. You were always asking me to find out the dirt on them."

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" she countered crossly. "How many times do I have to tell you? She called him James. She said, 'No, James, I won't put up with this anymore.' Why would she do that if she was talking to somebody else?"

Dick rubbed his eyes. He'd heard her say this a number of times, but the solicitor's remark about words out of context had unsettled him. "You told me the next day that you couldn't hear anything James said… well, maybe you didn't hear Ailsa too well either. I mean, it makes a hell of a difference if she was talking about him instead of to him. Maybe the I wasn't there… maybe she said, 'James won't put up with this anymore.' "

"I know what I heard." Prue said stubbornly.

"So you keep saying."

"It's true."

"All right… what about this punch you said he gave her? Why didn't the postmortem find any bruises?"

"How would I know? Maybe she died before they could develop." Irritably, she pulled the coverlets over the beds and smoothed them flat. "What were you phoning James for, anyway? I thought we agreed to take Ailsa's side."

Dick stared at the floor. "Since when?"

"It was you who told me to go to the police."

"I said you didn't have much choice. That's not an agreement to take a side." Another vigorous rub of his eyes. "The solicitor said there's a case against you for slander. According to him, you've been inciting people to call James a murderer."

Prue was unimpressed. "Then why doesn't he sue? Eleanor Bartlett says that's the best evidence there is that he's guilty. You should hear what she says about him." Her eyes gleamed at some memory that amused her. "Plus if anyone's making abusive phone calls, it's her. I've been there when she's made one. She calls it 'smoking him out.' "

Dick took stock of his wife for the first time in years. She was dumpier than the girl he'd married but a great deal more assertive. At twenty, she'd been mild-mannered and mousy. At fifty-four, she was a dragon. He hardly knew her now except as the woman who shared his bed. They hadn't had sex or talked about anything personal for years. He was out all day on the farm, and she was playing either golf or bridge with Eleanor and her snobbish friends. Evenings were passed in silence in front of the television, and he was always asleep before she came upstairs.

She sighed impatiently at his shocked expression. "It's fair enough. Ailsa was Ellie's friend… mine, too. What did you expect us to do? Let James get away with it? If you'd shown a blind bit of interest in anything other than the farm, you'd know there's far more to the story than the nonsense verdict the coroner produced. James is a complete brute, and the only reason you're making a fuss now is because you've been listening to his solicitor… and he's paid to take his client's side. You're so slow sometimes."

There was no arguing with that. Dick had always taken his time to think things through. What he blamed himself for was his indifference. "Ailsa can't have died that quickly," he protested. "You said the reason you didn't interfere was because she spoke to him after the punch. Okay, I'm no pathologist, but I'm pretty sure a person's circulation would have to stop immediately to prevent the damaged blood vessels leaking into the skin. Even then I wouldn't bet on it."

"There's no point browbeating me, it's not going to change my mind," announced Prue with a return to irritability. "I expect the cold had something to do with it. I heard a door slam afterward, so James obviously locked her out and left her to die. If you're so interested, why don't you call the pathologist and talk to him? Though you probably won't get much joy. Eleanor says they're all in the funny-handshake brigade, which is why James hasn't been arrested."

"That's ridiculous. Why do you take any notice of what that stupid woman says? And since when were either of you friends of Ailsa? The only time she ever spoke to you was when she was after money for her charities. Eleanor was always complaining about what a scrounger she was. I remember how mad you both were when the paper said she'd left £1.2m. Why did she ask us for money, you both said, when she was rolling in it?"

Prue ignored the remark. "You still haven't explained why you were phoning James."

"Travelers have taken over the Copse," he grunted, "and we need a solicitor to get rid of them. I hoped James would put me in touch with his."

"What's wrong with ours?"

"On holiday till the second."

Prue shook her head in disbelief. "Then why on earth didn't you phone the Bartletts? They have a solicitor. What possessed you to phone James? You're such an idiot, Dick."

"Because Julian had already passed the buck to me," hissed Dick through clenched teeth. "He's gone to the Compton Newton meet, dressed up like a dog's dinner, and he thought they were saboteurs. Didn't want to get his blasted clothes dirty, as per bloody usual. You know what he's like… lazy as hell and didn't fancy a run-in with some thugs… so ducked the whole damn issue. It makes me mad, frankly. I work harder than anyone in this valley but I'm always expected to pick up the pieces."