‘Since the coat has absolutely no intrinsic value, Inspector, I must regretfully conclude that the choice lies between an outbreak of gesture politics or the damage being the work of a mind deranged.’

Sloan tried another tack. ‘And which would you think the more likely?’

‘Malice or madness? I’ve no idea at all, Inspector.’

‘Really,’ she exclaimed, stumping into the kitchen and plonking herself down on the nearest chair, ‘this place is getting worse than Nightmare Abbey. Whatever next?’

A grammatical purist might have wondered why Miss Bentley hadn't said ‘whoever’ rather than ‘whatever’ but the former headteacher belonged to the Superintendent Leeyes school of taking bad news as a personal affront rather than as an occasion for sympathy for the victim.

‘What condition?’

‘He's got a bad heart as well as the leg injuries he got in the war which put him in his wheelchair.’

‘Ah.’ If there was one thing which every policeman knew it was that families were bad for every medical condition, but especially for heart ones. Legs were less important.