By a Narrow Majority by Faith Martin

‘Any time, Inspector, any time.’
    Out on the street, Hillary told Janine to go and talk to Mrs McNamara – who’d probably be at her place of work – and confirm the nuts and bolts of her husband’s story. ‘But hurry back, then we’ll see what Percy Matthews has to say for himself,’ she added grimly.
    Janine didn’t need telling twice.

chapter five
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    Janine wasn’t gone long, and reported back within the hour that Mrs McNamara’s story supported that of her husband in all respects. And since she herself hardly knew either the victim or his wife, there had been little she could add to help move the case forward.  
    ‘So, McNamara’s not officially out of it, but he’s not high on the list,’ Hillary responded gloomily. By now, she was hoping that she could at least have started ruling people out, but McNamara’s alibi was still definitely iffy. She glanced at Tommy’s desk, but it was still vacant, and she could only hope that he’d return with better news concerning Valerie Dale’s movements last night.  
    ‘Right, let’s see what the Matthews have to say for themselves ,’ she sighed.  
    Outside, they took Hillary’s car, which was slightly bigger than Janine’s, with Hillary opting to drive. According to Frank’s somewhat cartoon-like map of Lower Heyford, the Matthews residence was at the top end of the village. She found it with ease – a tiny cottage, situated off the main road via a stone and mud farm track, overlooking a small set of allotments. Next to it stood an empty barn and some rusting farm machinery, with weeds growing through the metal.  
    As Hillary climbed out, she looked through the barely greening hawthorn bushes at the allotments, and could make out several ramshackle sheds, and, here and there, tepee-likebeanpoles for runner beans, with some clumps of curly greens, and brussel sprouts in frost-blackened rows. It instantly took her straight back to her childhood, for her father had kept an allotment, mostly for the cultivation of new potatoes and soft fruit. And sweet peas, for the local flower show.
    Her father had been dead for several years now, and Hillary turned firmly away from the nostalgic sight and headed for the single dwelling, which had once, surely, been a farm labourer’s cottage, a basic two-up, two-down. She knew from what she’d been able to glean during Janine’s short absence that Percy Matthews was a retired shoe salesman, who’d worked for nearly forty years in the same shop in Bicester, before it had closed to make way for a computer showroom. His wife, as far as Hillary could tell, had never worked beyond doing odd domestic jobs for the locals. The couple had five children, who’d all long since flown the nest.
    Janine pushed open an old-fashioned picket gate, set in a matching, but rather flimsy-looking, picket fence. ‘No wonder the hounds got in,’ Janine muttered, eyeing the askew, white-painted woodwork. ‘This wouldn’t have kept a hedgehog out.’
    ‘It was up to the master of hounds to control his dogs,’ Hillary said sharply, making Janine shoot her a quick look.
    ‘Anti-hunting, boss?’ she asked, with genuine curiosity. She knew, from having lived in rural areas all her life, that the pro-hunters were talking rubbish when they insisted that the vast majority of country dwellers were all pro-hunting. In fact, nearly everybody that Janine knew, who were also country bred like herself, detested the practice. And that included not a few farmers! She suspected that her boss, like herself, was glad that the barbaric so-called sport had been banned.
    Hillary merely nodded, then walked up the short, flagged stone path and reached for the knocker. The garden was small but tidy, well kept but uninspired. A small square of lawnplayed host to four flat flower-beds on each side. A dwarf and weeping flowering cherry tree stood squarely in the middle.
    ‘Sweet,’ Janine said, following her gaze. ‘At least there aren’t any bloody