up their warrant cards. ‘I think you’ll find that in this context, he doesn’t, ma’am.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Mrs Walker drawled, as she inspected the credentials, closely, ‘he’s gone and the world is still turning, officer. Life goes on.’
‘Not for Dean Francey and Anna Hojnowski, it doesn’t,’ Haddock snapped, his customary calm disturbed.
‘And who would they be?’
‘They would be, or rather they were, the two people inside the car that your husband reported burning last night.’
For the first time, Nancy Walker’s self-assurance was ruffled. ‘It was a car?’ she exclaimed. ‘I saw flames from the kitchen, a short distance away; Roland went to investigate, then he called the fire brigade, but he didn’t go close enough to see what it was. We heard no more, indeed we thought no more of it, until one of you chaps called us to say we could expect a visit. People died, you say?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Pye confirmed.
‘That is unfortunate,’ the woman said. She hugged herself and gave a small shiver. ‘I suppose you’d better come in; you might not freeze out here in your overcoats, but I shall, pretty soon.’
She stood aside to allow them to enter a spacious wood-panelled hall. ‘Come along with me,’ she instructed, ‘and I’ll show you the view I had.’
They followed her along a corridor that led to the back of the house, into a kitchen that was flooded with light by the low winter sun. It was a mix of traditional and modern, with an Aga cooker and a farmhouse table, surrounded by fitted units and black granite work surfaces.
The sink was below the window. ‘Take a look,’ Mrs Walker said, gesticulating. ‘I was rinsing the salad when I saw the flames.’
The detectives stood beside her; from their viewpoint they saw a thick green stand of leylandii, capped at a height of around twenty feet.
‘It’s for privacy; we can’t see through and nobody can see in, but last night the light of a fire was visible even above that. I called to Roland . . . he was pouring the Prosecco at the time. He came rushing through, swore like a trooper when he saw it and rushed off again.’
‘Didn’t it strike you as weird?’ Haddock asked. ‘I mean, a fire out here in the middle of winter.’
‘This is the countryside, young man,’ Nancy Walker replied stiffly. ‘People do the silliest things here. They think they can park and have barbecues anywhere, any time, and they are all careless with their fires.’
‘In February?’
‘That is unusual, I admit. You’re telling me that two people managed to set their car on fire, with themselves inside it? Too preoccupied, I imagine, to notice anything until it was too late.’
‘Not quite,’ Pye said. ‘Before you saw the light of the fire, did you hear any noises?’
‘What kind of noise?’ She sniffed. ‘People having sex?’
‘No, I wouldn’t expect you to hear that from a couple of hundred yards away.’ A bizarre image of Nancy and Roland Walker leapt into his mind, and then to his relief it went away again. ‘Sounds that might have been gunshots.’
The woman frowned, placing her index finger against her chin. ‘Now you mention it,’ she murmured, ‘yes, I did. I’d just checked the trout that I had baking in the Aga, when I heard a couple of bangs.’
‘That didn’t alarm you?’
She shook her head, firmly. ‘No. Chief Inspector, there are deer in this area, and where there are deer these days, there are poachers. It might surprise you but gunshots are not unusual around here.’
‘Even at night?’
‘Especially at night: that’s when poachers work. I met one, a couple of years ago. He had radiator trouble and he came to the house to ask if we could fill his water can. He was quite open about what he was doing. He told me that he used a night sight; assured me that we were quite safe, that it could tell the difference between a person and a deer.’ She paused. ‘So, are you now telling me that the people in the burning car were shot?’
‘I’m afraid we are.’
‘That’s quite appalling. What is this world coming to?’
‘A good question,’ Haddock conceded. ‘Mrs Walker, have you seen anyone recently who was out of the ordinary?’
‘Around here, most people are out of the ordinary. You may think of this as an isolated spot on the edge of a busy city, but it isn’t. Further on up the road, the reservoir, and the one beyond, are very popular places. They’re stocked