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young Sylvia have to say for herself?’
    Kirkpatrick chuckled. ‘I’m afraid I embarrassed her,’ he said. ‘It took a bit of coaxing, but she finally admitted that she had a bit of a crush on Newman, and she’d slipped into his room a couple of times, as she put it, “to look round and sort of pretend that he was there with her”.’
    â€˜Did you believe her?’
    Kirkpatrick shrugged. ‘It sounded just soppy enough to be true,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a fifteen-year-old at home who’s a bit like that since she discovered boys. And my impression of Miss Tyler is that she’s not all that mature.’
    Paget nodded. That had been his impression as well.
    â€˜There were a variety of prints I couldn’t identify on some of the older furniture and on the door and window sill, but my guess is they belong to previous tenants. There were none where I would have expected them to be if whoever removed the papers and the laptop hadn’t worn gloves. Something like driving gloves, I suspect, because I found one very small piece of thread caught on the rough edge of the plywood table, and I think when we take a closer look at it, we’ll find it’s the sort used for stitching gloves like that.’
    Paget grimaced. ‘It’s not much to go on, though, is it?’ he said.
    â€˜There was one other thing,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘I found similar threads on the back door beside the lock. The only other prints on the door belonged to Sylvia Tyler, and when I checked her gloves, they were nowhere near the same.’
    Molly appeared in the doorway. ‘I called Mrs Chandler back,’ she told Paget, ‘and it turns out that she is the doctor’s wife in Lyddingham. Apparently she comes in to Whitcott to meet her friend for coffee, which is why I found her there this morning. Anyway, when she told her husband that I had been asking if anyone had seen any activity around Wisteria Cottage last week, he said he remembered driving past there Friday morning and seeing two men get out of a car and go through the gate. I asked Mrs Chandler if he recognized them or could describe them, but she says they had their backs to him, and he only glanced at them as he drove by.’
    â€˜What time was that?’ asked Paget.
    â€˜He thinks it would be about half past nine.’
    â€˜And classes start at eight, so everyone is out of the house on weekdays by that time,’ said Paget. ‘It fits. Does he remember anything about the car?’
    â€˜He says not, sir, but I’ve made arrangements to meet him tomorrow to see if I can jog his memory. I plan on taking the car book with me to see if that will help.’
    â€˜Good! Anything else?’
    â€˜I’m afraid not, sir. No one I spoke to today had anything bad to say about the students in Wisteria Cottage, or the students at the college in general. There are a lot of them boarding in the area, and the villagers like that because they do well out of them. And with the Red Lion being the only pub in the village, just about everyone knows Emma Baker. Some of them said they knew Mark Newman because he’d done some work for them, but no one seemed to know anything
about
him.’
    Paget nodded. ‘What time are you seeing this doctor, tomorrow?’
    â€˜Two o’clock. He’s busy in the morning.’
    â€˜Right, in that case, perhaps it would be a good idea to go early and have lunch at the Red Lion and see what information you can pick up about Doyle and Newman. And if that doesn’t bring any results, perhaps you’d better go back later and try the evening crowd. Any problem with that, Constable?’
    â€˜Sounds good to me, sir,’ said Molly, grinning. ‘Best assignment I’ve had for months.’

Five
Wednesday, March 12
    â€˜Q uite a number of my patients come from Whitcott Lacey,’ Dr Chandler said in answer to Molly’s question.