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wearing quite a bit of jewellery – good stuff – some quite a lot older than the rest so that might have been her mother’s. Robbery can’t have been the name of the game, then. Nor had she been sexually interfered with. All these people were killed with what appears to be one slash of a very sharp knife. I would guess the blade would need to be at least ten inches long.’
    â€˜A machete?’ Patrick asked.
    â€˜Could be.’
    Almost two hours later, the PMs completed, Rapton said, ‘Well, they were all finished off in the way I mentioned. There’s no sign of other injury prior to the one that killed them; attempted strangulation or anything like that. But whether they were doped or poisoned first will emerge after tests. Somehow, I think not but don’t quote me on that. Perhaps you’d be so good as to tell Carrick I’ll try to get the results to him tomorrow. But I can’t promise anything. Toxology tests are complicated and time-consuming – as he well knows.’
    A few minutes later we were outside in the fresh air and gratefully took deep breaths. Even newly dead bodies smell dreadful when they are cut open.
    â€˜I honestly don’t know whether I need a cup of strong black coffee right now or to throw up,’ Patrick muttered.
    â€˜Perhaps you’ll give me fair warning if it’s the latter,’ I requested.
    We returned to the rectory, hoping to find Carrick there. He was not but arrived, on his own, a few minutes later.
    â€˜Learn anything?’ he said to Patrick.
    â€˜Yes, human beings have much longer guts than one would have ever thought possible.’
    â€˜
Useful
, I meant,’ Carrick responded heavily.
    Patrick turned on him a wide innocent gaze. ‘That’s a hellishly useful thing to know, cheering too if you happen to lose a couple of yards somehow.’ After I’d given him a look he continued, ‘The younger of the two men might have had form.’
    â€˜He had,’ the DCI acknowledged briskly. ‘He did time for GBH and firearms offences. Plus attempted murder, which they couldn’t make stick.’ He took the tray of crockery from Elspeth as she entered the room, set it down on a small table and went on, ‘Name of Keith Davies. He had a flat in a mill conversion in the village here. As did the other two, Christopher and Janet Manley.’
    â€˜
Really?
’ Elspeth exclaimed. ‘The three people who were murdered? How extraordinary!’
    â€˜Did you know them?’ Carrick asked her.
    â€˜No, I didn’t even know their names. I don’t think they were particularly friendly with anyone locally. Frankly, though, they were the sort of people whom you thought might come to a sticky end.’ She went away to get the coffee pot, leaving the DCI to marshal his thoughts and Patrick to hide a smile behind his hand.
    â€˜So, if you don’t mind my asking,’ Carrick said carefully on her return, ‘what constitutes a person who might come to a sticky end?’
    The pot poised for pouring, Elspeth said, ‘Well, the older man threatened Helen Fuller when her dog ran into the communal garden in front of the mill, and soon after they moved in the woman picked some of the daffodils along the wall in front of the Jeffersons’ house.’
    â€˜That isn’t
really
serious,’ Carrick pointed out.
    â€˜James, you’re not with me at all on this,’ Elspeth scolded. ‘Foul language, aggressive behaviour and thieving came easily to them. Second nature. That kind of people.’
    â€˜And the other man?’ he enquired humbly.
    â€˜Worse. Sullen, always looking over his shoulder, something to hide. Helen said he reminded her of the actors who play crooks in
The Bill
.’
    â€˜So she had a run-in with him too?’ Patrick said.
    â€˜Well, you know Helen. A bit like her dog – often where she shouldn’t be. Only this time he’d