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one of them. This dated, he was sure, from a sermon one Sunday in which he had preached on pacifism and the importance of turning the other cheek. On his next visit to the Manor a doughty, bedridden old warrior had invited him to inspect a quite different cheek once penetrated by an enemy bayonet.
    When asked by Brailsford about the late Mrs Gertrude Powell, Captain Peter Markyate had hummed and hawed and fussed about with the silver-framed photographs on the mantelshelf of his room while managing to tell the Rector absolutely nothing about the deceased except that she’d been ‘a bit of a goer’ in her day. ‘She used to talk a good deal about a poem she liked called “The Road Not Taken”,’ he said at last.
    â€˜By Robert Frost,’ the Rector had helpfully identified it. ‘What about it?’
    â€˜Gertie used to say she’d taken both roads.’ He stirred uncomfortably. ‘Well, all roads, actually.’ He paused. ‘And she had.’
    â€˜I see,’ said Brailsford, mentally assessing the worth of this as eulogy material.
    â€˜Of course, she was good-looking, too,’ Markyate had added warmly. ‘She was very good-looking, then.’
    â€˜A widow, I understand,’ said Brailsford.
    Markyate coughed and murmured something very indistinct about Gertie’s first husband, Donald Tulloch, having bought it at Tobruk.
    â€˜Ah,’ said the Rector, mentally beginning to compose something sonorous but suitable about sacrifice and death in battle. ‘And her second husband?’
    Peter Markyate stared at his shoes and muttered vaguely that as far as he himself knew no one was absolutely sure exactly what had happened to Gertie’s second husband. He didn’t think there was anyone who could tell the Rector anything about him now. Anyone at all. Gertie herself never spoke of her second husband.
    â€˜Mr Powell, you mean?’ said Brailsford.
    Captain Markyate shook his head. ‘No, no, Rector, Hubert Powell was her third husband,’ he said, adding with a sudden burst of energy, ‘Thank goodness.’
    â€˜Thank goodness?’ echoed Brailsford.
    â€˜He was the one with the money.’

Chapter Three
    There is no armour against Fate
    â€˜Where to, sir?’ enquired Detective Constable Crosby from the driving seat. He was already revving up the engine of the police car in the yard.
    â€˜Almstone,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan, adding grudgingly, ‘And you can put a shift on if you like.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir.’ Crosby slammed the engine into gear and the car roared joyously out of the police compound. Driving fast cars fast was his greatest joy in life. ‘Trouble, sir?’
    â€˜Maybe. Can’t say yet,’ said Sloan. ‘As far as I can see the choice lies between its being all about an old lady with an overdeveloped taste for high drama or real mischief.’
    â€˜So where’s the fire then?’ asked Crosby, heading the car out of the car park at a speed satisfactory to him if to no one else.
    â€˜We are going,’ said Sloan precisely, ‘to St Clement’s Church to stop a funeral.’
    â€˜That’s new, sir,’ said the detective constable appreciatively. ‘Haven’t done that before.’ He crouched over the wheel, leaving the streets of Berebury behind with speed. He started to hum the tune of ‘Get Me to the Church on Time’ under his breath.
    â€˜Because Morton’s, the undertakers,’ remarked Sloan bitterly, ‘are probably the only firm in Calleshire not to have a mobile telephone in their business vehicle.’
    â€˜Their hearse, you mean?’ said Crosby, treating some new traffic-calming installations rather as a champion skier would deal with a tight slalom in a speed race.
    â€˜I do.’
    â€˜Tod Morton wouldn’t risk anything that might wake the dead,’ said Crosby, executing a stately pas de