‘A prank?’ Mum appeals to Dad again. ‘Did you hear that, Geoff? Killing someone is a joke, now, is it? Leaving them bleeding on a carpet . . .’
‘Mum, for God’s sake.’ Fran makes a face that suggests mental impairment. ‘Kit’s saying that the police think there was no killing – the prank was getting someone to lie down in a load of red paint, or tomato ketchup . . .’
‘I know the difference between blood and paint,’ I say.
‘What sort of prank is that?’ Mum demands. ‘It’s not very funny, is it? What woman in her right mind would ruin a lovely dress by lying in paint?’
‘Sam and Grint both think the prank theory’s as daft as we all think it is,’ says Kit. ‘Someone higher up the Cambridge police ladder suggested it when they found out that whoever hacked into the website and changed the virtual tour changed it back again half an hour later. I don’t really understand why that’s significant, and I’m not sure Sam and Ian Grint do either, but there’s not a lot any of us can do. The decision’s been made.’
‘And you’re just going to sit back and do nothing?’ Mum stares at me in horror. ‘Pretend it never happened? What about your responsibility to that poor woman, whoever she is?’
‘What can Connie do?’ Kit asks.
‘I could apply for a job as Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire police,’ I suggest.
‘Where’s the cake, Daddy?’ Benji asks Anton. ‘When are we going to give Connie her presents?’
I have no idea what he’s talking about. Then I remember that this is supposed to be my birthday party. Today is my birthday. Like all Monk family celebrations, it began at 5.45 p.m. and will finish at 7.15 p.m., so that Benji can be in bed by 8.
‘First thing Monday morning, Kit, you phone the police,’ says Dad. Welcome to the conversation. ‘You tell them you think it’s a disgrace – you want answers and you want them now. You want to know what they’re planning to do, and they’d damn well better be planning to do something.’
‘That’s right.’ Mum nods her support.
‘If they mess you around, you threaten to go to the press. If they still don’t pull their finger out, you put your money where your mouth is. The minute it hits the local papers, the minute Cambridge residents know about this and start to panic, there’ll be nowhere for DC Ian Grint and his chums to hide.’
‘Dad, what are you talking about?’ Fran laughs. ‘Local residents won’t start to panic. You make it sound as if there’s a maniac on a killing spree, roaming the streets of Cambridge. Would you panic, if you heard that someone had been killed in Little Holling, if you had no reason to think you were in danger?’
‘That would never happen,’ Mum says. ‘That’s why we live in Little Holling – because it’s safe and no one’s likely to murder us in our homes.’
‘Cambridge isn’t exactly Rwanda, is it, and someone seems to have been murdered there,’ Fran fires back at her.
‘Cambridge is a city, with . . . people from all over the place living in it. No one knows anyone in a city, there’s no sense of community. Nothing like what Connie saw would happen here, and if it did, the police would investigate it properly.’
‘Define “here”.’ Fran looks to me for support. I look away. I can’t risk getting into any kind of argument with Mum, in case I get carried away and accidentally mention that if ever a murder is committed in Little Holling, it will very likely be of her, by me. ‘Cambridge isn’t that far away. I’m sure it’s got quite a low murder rate, because people who live there are generally quite intelligent and have better things to do than kill each other. Whereas in the Culver Valley . . .’
‘The Culver Valley’s one of the safest places in England,’ Dad says.
‘Are you kidding me? Anton, tell him! Don’t you two read the local papers? In Spilling and Silsford in the last few years, there have been . . .’ Fran stops. Benji is tugging at her arm. ‘Yes, darling? What?’
‘What’s a murder? Is it when someone dies, when they’re a hundred?’
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Mum wails at Fran. ‘Poor little Benji. It’s nothing for you to worry about, angel. We all go to heaven when we die and it’s lovely in heaven – isn’t it, Grandad?’