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a single reference to either Rhodes or Ashmere. I began to wonder how Louise had managed to find out so much about each case, but then realised that she had doubtless spent much longer than a day in the reference section during her investigations.
    I left the library feeling a little downhearted, knowing that — if anybody — Louise was the one person who could fill in the missing blanks.
    ***
    Trish collared me as I walked into college for the start of the fourth week of the course. “Guess who I saw last Friday night,” she began.
    “I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m hopeless at guessing games.”
    “Spoilsport,” she pouted. “All right, then, I’ll just have to tell you. Oh, wait, here’s Debbie. I might as well tell you both at once. Hi, Debbie. I was just going to tell Ethan who I saw on Friday night, in McDonald’s.”
    “Go on, then, tell,” she replied.
    “Gail and her husband.”
    “What’s so unusual about that?” I asked. “She told us he was only going to be away for a few days. He was probably back from his management meeting by Friday.”
    “Management? Her husband clears away the leftovers. The only management he’s involved with is managing to keep the tables clean. I was at the next table, but she had her back to me and didn’t know I was watching — and listening. I walked past Gail’s table when she went to get a paper napkin, and I spotted her bus pass lying next to her plate. She told us she was fifty-two, remember, and she has a
pensioner’s
bus pass. Oh, and her name’s Smith, not Smythe. It looks like you were right, Ethan, she’s all fur coat and no knickers.”
    “Are you certain she didn’t see you there?”
    “No, at least I don’t think…shush, she’s coming. Hi, Gail, nice to see you.”
    Gail looked at the three of us and seemed a little puzzled at the way we were looking at her, but before she had a chance to say more Louise entered the room, followed closely by Emma; after the way she had left so abruptly the week before, I hadn’t been sure if Emma would come back. She took a seat slightly away from the table, so she was able to see all of us clearly but we needed to make a conscious effort to turn to address her. Perhaps her body language was saying,
I’m here, but don’t any of you try and engage me in the conversation
. I gave a mental shrug and turned my full attention on Louise.
    “Hello all,” she began. “Have you had a good week? Are you ready for the next instalment on our historical journey?”
    “Before we start,” I said, “I went to the library in Blackpool this week to see if I could find out anything about either murder. I found practically nothing. How did you manage to get so many details?”
    “I’m glad that the course has stimulated your interest so much. I hoped it would for all of you. All I’ll say, though, is that it has taken me years of research to get this far. I did use libraries — much of my work took place in the pre-Internet days — but you have to be selective in where you go. If you want information about something that happened in Manchester, for example, then the best source is the local newspapers from that area, and you generally only find them in libraries in Manchester. So it doesn’t surprise me that the Blackpool library had no such details. Remember, the cases I’m talking about aren’t the high-profile ones that everybody has heard of. In general, they concern ordinary people and seemingly ordinary circumstances.”
    I felt a little deflated. I was keen to know more, but I hadn’t gone about it in the correct way – and, even if I had, how could I have expected to find out something that Louise had missed when this had been her life’s work? Rather than Poirot to the rescue, I now realised I was the much less effective Hastings.
    Louise smiled at me, as if she had read my thoughts, and continued. “All right, then, let’s press on. Tonight, I want to look at another case, the shooting of