Birtland laughed. ‘I don’t suppose that’s much use to you.’
‘Could you say how many shots you heard?’ asked Cooper, afraid to go back to the DCI with anything so vague.
‘Two or three,’ said Mrs Birtland.
‘Or four,’ said her husband.
Cooper sighed. ‘Thank you.’
‘We would have come forward anyway when we heard somebody had been killed, you know. But we were told you’d be calling today.’
‘That’s all right.’
Mrs Birtland accompanied Cooper to his car. ‘I’m sorry if we don’t appear very hospitable,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry. But if you do happen to remember anything more about Miss Shepherd, or about any visitors she had –’
‘Yes, of course, we’ll let you know.’
‘Thank you.’
Frances Birtland looked up the street towards the village. ‘You know, we always thought we’d be comfortably off when we got old,’ she said. ‘But look at us now. There are young kids around here who get more pocket money to spend than we get in pension. The world’s gone crazy, don’t you think? And it was just our luck to be at the wrong end of our lives when it happened.’
Cooper knew what Fry would have said if she’d been at the Birtlands’ with him. ‘So much for neighbourliness. What happened to that famous community spirit you’re always telling me about, Ben?’
When he picked her up, Fry was about a hundred yards further down the road from the Ridgeways’ barn conversion, on the corner of the High Street. She seemed to be looking at the square tower of the church rising above yew trees in the graveyard, and at a cottage next to it, with honeysuckle hanging from the roof of the porch.
‘Any luck?’ he said when she got into the car.
‘They didn’t hear anything. Their double glazing is too good. You?’
‘The Birtlands might have noticed the shots. But they’ve been here all their lives, and they’re used to hearing people shooting rabbits.’
They pulled in through the gates of Bain House and parked behind a dog handler’s van.
‘By the way, the Ridgeways think Rose Shepherd was a foreigner,’ said Fry.
‘That’s funny. The Birtlands think the Ridgeways are foreigners.’
Fry snorted. ‘They’re from Luton.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oh, I see. So the Ridgeways are the awful incomers. What happened to that famous –’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Also, Mr Ridgeway kept banging on about grey squirrels. He seems to have a bit of an obsession with them.’
‘They’re a big problem,’ said Cooper. ‘The government ought to do something to eradicate them.’
Fry just groaned. And Cooper wondered what he’d said wrong this time.
Moira Lowther gave her son another hug. ‘Take care, John. Give us a call if you need to talk. You know we’re here, don’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s all right.’
She looked suddenly anxious and tried to hold him back. ‘And you’re taking – You’re doing everything you should, dear?’
‘It’s fine. Everything’s under control.’
He walked back down the path, no longer seeming to care whether he stepped on the tortoises, or whether the angel was close enough to speak to. His green Hyundai stood at the kerb, just out of sight below the wall.
Moira watched him until he vanished from view, and listened for his car driving away. Then she turned back to her husband. ‘Who was that on the phone?’
‘Just Tony.’
‘Who?’
‘You know, he used to work for the company. He went off a few months ago to set up on his own account.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember. He was the one I didn’t like.’
Lowther laughed. ‘You and your likes and dislikes. Tony was always loyal to the company. Unlike some of these others, deserting a sinking ship.’
‘Is it that bad, Henry?’
‘Oh, we’ll survive.’
‘I don’t want to have to think about it right now.’
‘None of us do.’
She gazed down the road, though the Hyundai was long since gone.
‘Do you think John will be all right?’ she said.
‘We’d better keep an eye on him. He’s very upset.’ Lowther put an arm round his wife. ‘And how are you coping?’
The question seemed to start her tears all over again, and tears turned to deep, racking sobs. It was a few moments before she could get her breath back.
‘How did it happen?’ she said. ‘How on earth did it happen?’
‘Hell, I don’t know.’
Mrs Lowther pulled out a tissue to dry her eyes. They both stood in their garden in silence for a while, listening to the trickle of water, the chatter of a blackbird. No one watching them could have told what they were thinking, or whether the Lowthers were even thinking the same thoughts.
‘Well, we have to make sure we look after the living now, don’t we?’ said Moira. ‘That’s the most important thing.’
Henry Lowther patted her shoulder. ‘That’s all I’ve ever wanted,’ he said.
‘Between two and four a. m.?’ said Hitchens when Cooper and Fry returned to Bain House. ‘Is that the best they could do?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Well, it falls bang in the middle of our time scale, anyway. So it helps a bit, I suppose.’
‘We’re no closer to filling in details of Miss Shepherd’s background, though,’ said Fry.
Hitchens shook his head. ‘Not much nearer. Although the owners of the village shop think Rose Shepherd’s accent might have been Irish.’
‘Do they? But her passport says she was British. Born in London.’ Fry laughed. ‘It’s possible, though. Irish is foreign enough for folk round here.’
‘Why don’t we put it to Bernie Wilding?’ suggested Cooper.
But Hitchens shook his head. ‘It would be leading him too much. At the moment, he can’t identify Miss Shepherd’s accent, but if we suggest a particular nationality, he might try to make all his recollections fit in with the suggestion. I bet we could get him to agree that Rose Shepherd was an Iraqi or an Australian – anything we like the sound of.’
‘The name Shepherd sounds more Australian than Iraqi,’ pointed out Cooper.
‘I meant those as examples,’ said Hitchens. ‘Wake up, Ben.’
‘I was joking.’
‘Right. Well, it hasn’t been a laugh a minute round here, I can tell you – not with Mr Kessen in the mood he’s in. We have found a laptop, though. It was in the bottom drawer of the victim’s