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it, anyway, if she’d been using it for more than seven years.’ I was on doubtful ground here, but knew vaguely there was some such rule.
    ‘Twelve,’ he snapped. ‘It’s twelve. And she would have to be able to prove constant usage throughout that time. In any case, she was paying rent, which means she knew for a certainty that she was not the outright owner of the field.’
    ‘Difficult,’ I agreed, with another reckless smile. Somewhere in the past thirty seconds I had opted to fight openly for Mrs Simmonds and her chosen burial spot. Something inside me had clicked into battle mode, and I was feeling good about it. ‘Let the best man win, then, as they say.’
    ‘You’ll regret this,’ he warned loudly. ‘I’m going to make you very sorry you ever got involved.’
    ‘And let me tell you,’ I said, even louder, finally losing my temper, ‘that I don’t intend to let you win. People like you don’t deserve to have any authority; you understand nothing about what really matters. You should all be swept away, if you want my honest opinion.’
    We had begun to move back to the road by this time. At my parting shot, Mr Maynard had already turned his back and begun to march stiffly off, in a northerly direction, towards the village of Broad Campden. A car came towards us and slowed to a halt beside my vehicle.
    ‘What’s all this, then?’ came a voice I recognised.
    I turned to meet the enquiring gaze of Police Officer Jessica Osborne who, if anything, appeared to like me even less than she had done the day before.

Chapter Four
    I made it worse for myself by sighing, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ It seemed a reasonable question at the time.
    ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ she snapped. ‘Besides, I should be asking you that question. I thought you’d gone back to Somerset.’ Really, I said to myself, this was one very unfriendly girl. What had I done to deserve such disapprobation? Then I remembered my illegal car, and felt a small but real panic. However decent and competent a person you might be, there was no redress against police harassment. They could do exactly what they liked to you, so long as it didn’t leave too nasty a mark.
    ‘There’s a problem about this field and who owns it,’ I explained, tilting my chin to indicate the receding figure of Mr Maynard. ‘That’s a man from the council, who summoned me back here to be informed that the whole business has been a travesty. But I really don’t think there’s any need for you to get involved.’ As before, she was not in uniform, but dressed in a red sweatshirt. When she got out of the car I saw she also sported a pair of black jeans. She really was nothing at all like her mother.
    And why was she there, anyway? There was no sign of the detective boyfriend.
    ‘Hmm,’ she said, unhelpfully. ‘I did wonder.’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘I wondered how legal this burial was. Mum assured me you should know your own business, and there couldn’t possibly be anything dodgy about it.’ She looked at me with a false innocence that I found extremely irritating, but at least she wasn’t quite so hostile as she’d been at the start.
    ‘There’s nothing illegal about it,’ I said. ‘At worst it’s a trespass. That stupid idiot is overreacting, as they generally do. It’s a pity, though,’ I admitted, running a hand through my hair. ‘If only for Mrs Simmonds’ sake. Anyway, I have to go. This was a very inconvenient interruption, driving a hundred and twenty miles for a ten-minute argument. The whole thing could have been done by phone.’ The enormity of it hit me for the first time, causing a wave of rage against the infuriating council official. ‘It’s outrageous,’ I spluttered.
    ‘You can’t just turn round and go straight home again,’ she said, with a much softer tone. ‘You’d better come back to the house with me, and have some lunch or something.’
    I blinked. Was this the same bossy young