Scared to Live. Stephen Booth

squirrels.’

      ‘Also crows, rooks and magpies, which steal the eggs of song birds. They’re all classed as pests, so it’s lawful to shoot them on private property.’

      ‘I can understand that. But what’s the problem with squirrels?’

      ‘The invasion of grey squirrels has driven our native reds into remote sanctuaries, protected forests in Wales or Scotland. Now all they can do is cling on in dwindling numbers, powerless against an alien species.’ Ridgeway took a step towards her and lowered his voice. ‘Our kind of people are just like those red squirrels. We’re being driven out by the vermin.’

      ‘I think I’m finished here,’ said Fry.

      As she was shown out, she wondered why the Ridgeways had bothered joining Neighbourhood Watch if they knew nothing about their neighbours and couldn’t even see the adjoining properties. But she supposed there was only one reason, from their point of view – they thought it would provide protection for themselves.

      In the dining room, Martin Ridgeway tapped the barometer, as if out of habit. It appeared to be some kind of ritual before he opened the door of his barn conversion.

      Fry looked over his shoulder. One hand pointed at ‘Stormy’ and the other at ‘Change’.

      ‘Is that good or bad?’ she said.

      Ridgeway scowled. ‘The same as bloody usual.’

      Rose Shepherd’s other neighbours were called Birtland. Cooper found their address to be a bungalow, with a long curving drive leading off Pinfold Lane. The property was only a few decades old, but built after the introduction of national park planning regulations. There were no red brick terraces and plaster porticos here, no incongruities like those allowed in some of the forties and fifties developments. This place was stone clad and mullioned, designed to blend in with its surroundings.

      Even so, Cooper thought he would never get used to some of these new properties. They gave the impression that someone had sliced off a piece of landscape with a bulldozer and flattened an area big enough to plonk down a bungalow. There seemed to be no regard for the natural contours of the land.

      ‘Mrs Birtland?’

      ‘Yes?’ The grey-haired woman who answered his knock peered cautiously past a security chain.

      He showed his ID. ‘DC Cooper, Edendale CID.’

      ‘Is it about the murder?’

      ‘Oh, I see someone’s been talking. Was it the officer who called earlier?’

      ‘No, but word gets around.’

      Cooper smiled. He was pleased to hear that, for once. ‘May I come in? You can check my ID, if you want.’

      ‘No, that’s all right.’

      She took the chain off and let him into the bungalow.

      ‘Edward and Frances, is that right?’

      ‘I’m Frances, Edward is my husband.’

      ‘And is Mr Birtland in?’

      ‘Yes, Ted’s in the back. Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Cooper?’

      ‘No, thank you, Mrs Birtland. I won’t be keeping you long.’

      Being called ‘Mr Cooper’ made him smile even more. That really was a rarity in this job.

      ‘Ted,’ called Mrs Birtland, ‘we’ve got a visitor.’

      Edward Birtland didn’t get up when Cooper entered. He was seated in a well-used armchair by a random stone fireplace, a fragile man of about seventy. He held out a hand politely, and Cooper couldn’t do anything else but shake it. The grip of Mr Birtland’s fingers hardly registered.

      ‘So,’ he said, ‘how did you hear someone had been killed?’

      ‘The murder?’

      ‘Well …’

      Frances Birtland chuckled. ‘It was Bernie. Our postman knows everybody.’

      ‘Of course he does.’

      ‘You brought him back to Foxlow when he’d nearly finished his round. He stopped and told a few people about it on the way home.’

      ‘I understand how Bernie Wilding knows everybody. The question I’ve come to ask you is how well you knew Rose Shepherd.’

      ‘We didn’t know her at all. She hadn’t been in the village long.’

      ‘About ten months,’ said Cooper. But it wasn’t the first time he’d heard that sort of period dismissed as if it was yesterday. Your family had to have lived in some of these villages for generations before you belonged.

      ‘Are you Foxlow people yourselves?’

      ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Birtland. ‘We’ve lived here all our lives. We had a house on the High Street when we were married. We bought this little bit of land when Ted retired, and had the bungalow built. It took all the money we’d ever have – though we didn’t know it at the time.’

      Cooper glanced at Mr Birtland, who smiled sadly and patted his wife’s hand.

      ‘I thought I had a good pension put away,’ he said, ‘with the company I worked for. But it didn’t turn out the way we planned. Once we’d paid for the bungalow, suddenly there was nothing left. So we just have our old age pensions to live on.’

      ‘The only way we could live any better is by selling the bungalow,’ said his wife.

      ‘And moving away from Foxlow, I suppose?’

      She nodded. ‘And we could never do that.’

      ‘Can you think of anyone in the village who would have known Miss Shepherd better?’

      Mrs Birtland shook her head. ‘No, not really.’

      ‘Have you tried the Ridgeways on the other side?’ said her husband. ‘They live in the barn conversion. Well, I say barn conversion – that was Church Farm until a few years ago. My grandfather was a cowman there. He worked for the Beeley family all his life. It’s gone now, and so have the Beeleys.’

      ‘One of my colleagues is talking to Mr and Mrs Ridgeway. Do you think they might have known Miss Shepherd well, then?’

      ‘We couldn’t say.’

      ‘Don’t you talk to the Ridgeways either?’

      The Birtlands glanced at each other, exchanging some thought that they decided not to share with their visitor.

      ‘They moved into the village about the same time as Miss Shepherd,’ said Birtland finally. ‘So I suppose we tended to associate them together in our own minds. We didn’t know where any of them came from. Being located where we are, at this end of Pinfold Lane, we’ve started to feel as though we’ve been cut off from the rest of the village by incomers.’

      ‘I see.’

      Birtland looked at him expectantly. ‘You haven’t asked us yet whether we heard anything,’ he said.

      ‘It was the next question, sir.’

      ‘Ah, good. Well, we’ve been thinking about it since we heard that Miss Shepherd had been killed. Was she shot?’

      Cooper leaned forward. ‘Did you hear shots on Saturday night?’

      ‘Well, that answers my question,’ said Birtland with a chuckle. ‘We think maybe we did.’

      ‘What time would that have been?’

      Birtland reached out to pat his wife’s hand again. ‘We disagree on that, I’m afraid.’

      ‘Ted thinks it was about two o’clock in the morning, but I think it was more like three,’ she said. ‘I don’t sleep too well