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escapes her notice, and old Theo Whatsit lets her get on with it, so I hear. She’s a member of the Women’s Institute, and so, for my sins, am I. There’s a WI meeting on Thursday afternoon, and no, I don’t need a lift, Deirdre. I can manage to walk to the village hall, thanks.”
    Gus was delighted. All this getting going so soon! Nothing like a couple of bossy women to go straight to it.
    Ivy wiped the smile off his face with practised skill. “And you, Augustus? What are you going to do? As far as I can see, the chair don’t do much except make fancy speeches. Where are you going to start?”
    Gus was used to quick thinking, and said at once that he had already made a start. “Miriam Blake is already a friend,” he said. “We have shared the cup that—”
    “Yes, yes, we know all that,” interrupted Ivy, “but how do you mean to tackle her?”
    “Friendship. The poor woman is bereft and lonely,” Gus said. “Now is the time to release all her past resentments and feelings of revenge,” he added. “She is obviously suspect number one, but in my experience it is seldom number one who turns out to be the guilty party.”
    Deirdre gazed at him in disbelief. “Never mind the psychology,” she said. “She’s just a bitter old spinster, and from what I’ve heard hasn’t turned a hair at drowning kittens and strangling cockerels in the past. With a bread knife handy, I wouldn’t put it past her to . . . well, you know.”
    “Coffee time, I think,” said Gus, feeling slightly queasy.
    Ivy nodded. “I could do with a nice strong cup of tea, Deirdre,” she said. “And none of your scented muck with bits of flowers floating in it. PG Tips will do nicely.”
     
    UNAWARE THAT SHE was being roundly insulted by Mrs. Deirdre Bloxham, MBE, Miriam Blake sat at her tiny kitchen table with her mother’s last will and testament spread out before her. It was a simple document, leaving all Winifred Blake’s goods and chattels to her beloved daughter, Miriam. The sting in the tail was that there was all of five hundred pounds in total to bequeath.
    “Old devil!” Miriam said aloud. There had been a lot more money squirreled away somewhere, nothing surer. She knew perfectly well that her father had been a mean old bugger, scrimping and saving and hoarding all he could for some imagined emergency. She was sure there was cash somewhere. Her mother had been paranoid about locking doors, and always hung washing on the line to show it was not an empty house, when in fact they were away on their annual one week’s holiday in Southend-on-Sea. On the face of it, there was nothing worth stealing. But somewhere . . .
    Miriam folded up the will and replaced it in its envelope. What the old thing left in the bank would not even pay for the funeral. She would have to hunt properly and systematically round the house. But not straightaway. It would look bad, unseemly even, to be turning out cupboards and looking under floorboards before her mother was laid safely to rest. Last night she had awoken to see the familiar lined old face looking at her over the rail at the bottom of the bed. Miriam had pulled the bedclothes over her head, yelling at the apparition to go away and leave her alone.

Nine

    IN THE SPOTLESS kitchens of Springfields Home for the Elderly, Miss Pinkney was giving the Polish girl a piece of her mind. Fortunately, the girl could understand little of what the red-faced woman was saying. She had quickly discovered that the best thing to do in the face of this kind of meaningless tirade was to say nothing, but have an expression of anxiety to please on her face.
    As far as Katya could tell, the crime she had committed was leaving a pot of jam on the table without its top screwed on, a perfect target for the cloud of wasps that already buzzed around in ecstasy.
    “Sorry, Miss Pinkney. I will not do again,” she said humbly.
    “Do it again, girl! We like all our staff to speak good Queen’s English. Aren’t