Rushton leaned forward in his seat. ‘Reverend Laycock,’ he said. ‘I understand you got everything ready for the harvest service late on Saturday afternoon. Who could have had access to the church between the time of your leaving it and the Sunday-morning service?’

Harry looked at Mike, reluctant to mention Jenny in front of her husband. Mike opened his mouth to speak.

‘My wife was in the church for about a quarter of an hour after Reverend Laycock left,’ he said. ‘Sinclair lent her his keys. I joined her at around four thirty and we both had a good look round the building. She told me you’d suspected children or someone of hiding in the church, Vicar. Is that right?’

‘It is,’ admitted Harry. ‘Someone was messing around in there. I probably shouldn’t have left Jenny on her own, but she did insist.’

‘Jenny was fine,’ said Mike. ‘It was good of you to allow her some time. And the church was empty when we left. We made sure of it.’

‘Who else has keys to the church?’ asked Rushton.

‘Normally, only the vicar and the churchwardens, possibly the cleaner, would have keys to a church building,’ replied Mike. ‘At present we don’t have a cleaner. To my knowledge, only the vicar, Sinclair and I have keys now.’

‘Reverend, I’m not a churchgoer myself,’ began Rushton.

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ said Harry automatically.

‘Quite,’ said Rushton. ‘But Michael here tells me it’s customary for the priest to take Communion first, is that right?’

Harry nodded. ‘Yes, always. The idea is I’m in a state of grace myself before I administer the bread and wine to the other communicants.’

‘Would most people know that, do you think?’

‘I guess so. People who attend Communion regularly, anyway.’

‘What’s on your mind, Brian?’ asked Mike.

‘Well, it seems to me we have two possibilities. Either someone has a personal grudge against the vicar, and he was the one meant to be upset by the incident. Or the culprit didn’t realize the Communion wine would be tasted by the vicar first. Because if you’d taken that cup straight to the congregation, I bet you’d have got to around half a dozen before the first two or three realized what was going on. Then you would have had a problem on your hands. Can you think of anyone who might have a reason to play this sort of trick?’

Harry thought for a moment, because he knew it was expected of him. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve been wondering if maybe someone didn’t want the church to be opened again. Or perhaps I’ve upset someone since I’ve been here without realizing it.’

‘You haven’t,’ said Mike. ‘Actually, people are rather taken with you.’

‘What we’d like you to do, Reverend,’ said Rushton, ‘is to let us take your fingerprints so that we can check the decanter for any that don’t match yours.’

‘I’m happy to do the same, if it helps,’ said Mike, before turning to Harry. ‘Vicar, we need to think about church security. I’ll arrange to have the locks changed first thing in the morning. Make sure there are just the three sets of keys available.’

‘Fair enough,’ agreed Harry.

‘Good. I can have the new keys ready for you the day after tomorrow. Come and have some lunch in the White Lion with me. Shall we say one o’clock?’

Taking fingerprints was the work of a few minutes and then the two men said goodnight and left. Harry returned to his study. He looked at the drinks cabinet. He’d had enough. He felt something warm moving between his ankles and looked down. The cat was rubbing its body against his jeans.

‘I hate cats,’ grumbled Harry. He bent to pick it up. It lay in his arms, purring, comfortingly warm.

Half an hour later the cat was fast asleep. Harry hadn’t moved.

19 October

EVI PARKED HER CAR IN THE ONEREMAINING SPACE. THE huge hangar-style building of Goodshaw Bridge fire station was twenty yards away. She got out of the car and found her stick.

‘I struggle with stairs, I’m afraid,’ she explained to the fire officer at the reception desk. ‘Is there a lift I could use? Sorry to be a nuisance.’

‘No problem, love. Give me a minute.’

The fireman led her along the corridor. She tried to keep up but her back had been giving her trouble for days. Constantly leaning on her stick was putting too much pressure on the muscles on one side of her body and they were pressing against nerves. She should be using her chair more. It was just…

They reached the lift and went up one floor, then back along the corridor. Maybe on her way out she could just slide down the pole.

Ahead, her guide stopped at a blue door and rapped on it. Without waiting for a response he pushed it open. ‘Lady to see you, chief,’ he announced before glancing back at Evi. ‘Dr… er?’

‘Evi Oliver,’ she managed through gritted teeth. ‘Thanks so much.’

Inside the room, two more firemen were standing, waiting for her.

‘Dr Oliver, good morning,’ said the taller, older of the two, holding out his hand. ‘I’m station chief Arnold Earnshaw. This is my deputy, Nigel Blake.’

‘It was very good of you to see me,’ said Evi.

‘No problem. If the fire bell goes, you won’t see us for dust. Until then, we’re all yours. Now then, how about a coffee?’ He raised his voice. ‘Where you going, Jack?’

Evi’s guide reappeared, double-checked that his two superiors still took their tea milky with three sugars each and happily agreed to make Evi a white coffee.

All three sat down. Evi would have liked a moment to get her breath back but both men were watching her, waiting for her to begin.

‘I explained on the phone that I was interested in finding out more about a fire that occurred in Heptonclough a few years ago,’ she began. ‘It’s in connection with a case of mine, but I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t give you details. It’s a matter of patient confidentiality.’

Chief Earnshaw nodded his head. His colleague, too, looked interested, happy to help. She wondered if firemen were bored a lot of the time, actually quite welcomed distractions.

‘The fire was in the late autumn, three years ago,’ said Evi. ‘In a cottage in Wite Lane, Heptonclough, did I mention that?’

Earnshaw nodded and patted a manila file on his desk. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said. ‘Not that we really needed to look it up. That was a bad one. A little lass died.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Both of us,’ said Earnshaw. ‘Every one of our regulars and a few of our volunteers as well. What can we tell you?’

‘I understand that once the fire is contained, there are two basic questions that you need to answer,’ said Evi. ‘Where the point of origin was and what was the cause of the fire?’ Gillian still hadn’t told her how the fire had started. If it had been due to negligence on her part, or her husband’s, it might go some way towards explaining her anger, or her guilt. Both men were nodding at her.

‘Is that a good place to start?’ she asked.

Blake leaned forward. ‘You need three things to make a fire, Dr Oliver,’ he said. ‘You need heat, a fuel source such as paper or gasoline, and you need oxygen. Without any one of those, no fire.

Do you understand?’

Evi nodded.

‘In most circumstances, we can take the oxygen bit for granted. So, what we’re looking for is a combination of heat and fuel. After that, fire travels sideways and upwards from its point of origin. If a fire occurs at the foot of a wall, you’ll see the burn patterns spreading up and away from it in a V shape. Are you with me?’

Evi nodded again.

‘Some things in a house, like synthetic materials or stairways, can distort this, but as a rule of thumb you track the fire damage back to the point at which it was greatest and then look for the heat-and-fuel combination. At the Wite Cottage fire, the point of origin was pretty clear, even though the upper floor eventually collapsed. It was the kitchen, the area around the cooker.’