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the tomb. Had it been a meeting placed for her and one of her many “boyfriends”? But why risk meeting here that night? Her parents were away and their cottage was less than five minutes’ walk. Were the neighbours watching her? Even if they were narrow-minded enough to monitor the movements of an eighteen-year-old girl about to leave home, Anna could have smuggled him through the back door.
    Perhaps he was someone she dare not be seen with, especially late at night. Not a classmate or even a young man. But a married man. That’s if he even existed. Trevor knew he was building a case on the flimsiest supposition. He could almost hear Collins and Mulcahy laughing at him.
    He sat on the edge of the tomb to test his t h e o ry that he couldn’t be seen from the village. The yew tree would have grown in ten years. He made a note to check how much. Even in daylight all he could see was a small triangle of churchyard between the tree and the shed.
    He listened to the small noises of the village. A van with an old and, judging by the noise, tired diesel engine drove up the road. A tractor droned in a distant field. A child cried in one of the cottage gardens. Women’s voices echoed from the covered market place, which according to the information in the pub, was only used on a Wednesday. Then he heard the tread of feet crunching over gravel.
    He left his hiding place. Two women, their arms full of flowers, were tottering towards the church on high heels. Both were attractive and, he guessed, in their late thirties. One had dark h a i r, the other blonde, and both had the posture of trained dancers. He went to meet them.
    ‘Hello, ladies, I’m Inspector Trevor Joseph.’
    ‘We know who you are. It’s all over the village.’ The blonde bundled the flowers she was carrying into one arm, and shook the hand Trevor offered her. ‘I’m Judy Oliver, the vicar’s wife.’
    ‘And I’m Angela George.’
    ‘Any relation to Stephen George?’ Trevor recalled the name of the officer who had investigated Anna Harris’s murder.
    ‘I was. I’m his ex-wife.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Trevor said.
    ‘I’m not, Inspector Joseph; ten years of being married to a police officer were ten too many. Are you married?’ she enquired bluntly.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Give your wife my sympathy. Checking the crime scene?’
    ‘Going over the ground covered in the photographs. Both of you ladies knew Anna Harris, didn’t you?’
    ‘Everyone knows everyone in Llan, but yes, we knew her and knew her well. We were all in the local amateur dramatic group,’ Angela George replied.
    ‘Anna was a lovely girl. Pretty, talented, friendly and thoroughly nice,’ Judy Oliver added mechanically as if she were repeating a well-learned lesson. ‘Which is rare in someone with her ability. So many would-be actresses think only of themselves.’
    ‘She was just starting out, wasn’t she?’ Trevor opened the church door for them.
    ‘She’d had a fair bit of experience, nothing big, but we all knew she was going to make it. My husband and I were both in show business, Inspector Joseph.’
    ‘I recognized him.’
    ‘I trained as an actress and dancer, but I was in one of the first girl bands, Boudicca’s Babes.’
    ‘I remember them,’ Trevor lied.
    ‘And I never made it out of a panto chorus. Would you like to see Anna Harris’s memorial?’ Angela George kicked a wedge beneath the inner door.
    ‘She’s buried inside the church?’ Trevor was surprised.
    ‘Everyone in the village felt it was fitting.  It was the only thing we could do for her. We organized a collection for a memorial and commissioned a sculptress.’ Angela dropped her flowers onto a table and walked down the aisle. To the left of the altar was a raised plinth that held an exquisite marble angel. 
    Angela gently stroked the cheek. ‘The face is Anna’s. The sculptress knew her and, of course, Anna’s parents had hundreds of photographs.’
    Trevor read the inscription.
    ANNA