She was wearing her blue-and-white checked school uniform dress. Her curly hair was like a halo round her sweet face and her teeth were brilliant white against her brown skin.

‘Mummy’s made me a Britannia costume,’ she said, still gabbling, but a little clearer now. ‘She made the dress from an old sheet, it’s kind of like a Roman toga. But the helmet is the best, all silver and gleaming. I think I’m going to win the prize for best costume.’

Molly hugged Petal. She adored the little girl. ‘Now, don’t go banking on it, will you?’ she warned her. ‘Some of the other mummies can make good costumes, too, and the vicar is the judge and he can be a bit old-fashioned.’

‘She’s been like this for days,’ Cassie said, grinning with pride at her pretty daughter. ‘Look, Molly, I’m no cake maker, so let me pay for four bottles of orange squash as my contribution to the party.’

‘Are you sure you can afford it?’ Molly asked, because she knew Cassie had very little money to live on.

‘Of course! I don’t want those Holier than Thous pointing out I’m mean, as well as being “no better than I should be”.’

The way she laughed as she said this proved that, whatever people said, it was water off a duck’s back to her. ‘I’m going to doll myself up and flirt with any man who so much as glances at me,’ she went on. ‘That should give everyone something to talk about after I’ve taken Petal home.’

Molly admired Cassie so much for her attitude. She wished she could be so daring.

Now, remembering that last brief conversation she’d had with her friend, she wished she’d told her what she thought.

‘I took the money for the orange squash and said I’d take it to the hall instead of her carrying it home and bringing it back today,’ Molly told George. ‘The last thing I said to her was to remind her that the party started at three, and I said that maybe we could have a bit of a chat after it.’

George nodded. ‘Do you know of anyone Cassie might have visited today? A friend, relative? Maybe she left Petal with them.’

‘Cassie doesn’t have any relatives here, and she wouldn’t have left Petal with a friend, not when there was a party in the village.’ Molly paused, looking hard at George. ‘Cassie was killed, wasn’t she? I mean, it wasn’t just an accident.’

‘I can’t possibly say from just what you’ve told me,’ he said, looking at her with rather mournful eyes. ‘That’s for the investigating officers to decide, and the coroner, too. Now, to save time later, what can you tell me about Cassie’s friends? Male and female.’

‘You must know that she didn’t have any real friends in the village aside from me,’ Molly said reprovingly. ‘People were mean to her. They said nasty things because she was on her own with Petal, and because Petal wasn’t white.’

‘I am aware of that.’ He sighed. ‘Village people tend to be very narrow-minded. But do you know if anyone was particularly nasty to her? Threatened her? Called at Stone Cottage uninvited? Someone that bothered her?’

‘She often said she’d grown so used to getting the cold shoulder on the bus or outside the school that she barely noticed it any more. But I think she would’ve told me if anyone was doing something more than that.’

‘You were very close friends?’ he asked.

Molly frowned, not sure how to explain how it was. ‘Cassie wasn’t really one for closeness. I know she liked me, and was glad I wasn’t mean like everyone else, but I still couldn’t have dropped in to see her any old time I fancied. She kind of held back, if you know what I mean.’

George half smiled. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘I ran into her recently and I found her even more guarded than most people are when talking to a policeman. It was only when I said you and I were at school together that she warmed up. It was plain enough to me she was fond of you. What do you know about her family?’

‘That wasn’t a subject she encouraged,’ Molly said. ‘I kind of got the impression she’d brought herself up because her mother wasn’t up to much. I used to think that her father might be a bit like mine, but I was wrong about that because just recently she mentioned he’d been killed in the war.’

‘Where was her childhood home?’

Molly shrugged and pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. It must seem very odd that we were good friends yet I don’t know all that background stuff about her, but she talked about here-and-now stuff, like the past wasn’t important. But the reason I got the impression her mother wasn’t up to much was because she once said she wanted Petal to have the stability in her life that she’d never had. And Cassie did give her that. She was a great mother and home-maker. That cottage was awful when she moved in, but she made it nice.’

‘So when was the last time before today that you went to Stone Cottage? And tell me about her men friends.’ George asked.

Molly didn’t want to repeat anything Cassie had told her about the men in her life, but she knew she had to, in case one of them was responsible for her death.

‘The last time I went there was last Saturday,’ she said. ‘I’d been delivering an order to the Middletons up Platt’s Hill, I dropped in to see her afterwards.’

She paused, thinking about how everything had looked and seemed that day.

It was around eleven in the morning, very warm and sunny, and as she bumped down the track to Stone Cottage she thought how picturesque it looked. The ivy dappled the mellow golden stone walls, and the pink roses around the porch looked beautiful.

Petal was playing outside with a doll, wearing the pair of faded red shorts she always wore when it wasn’t a school day. She was small for a six-year-old, but well rounded, which made liars of those who claimed her mother half starved her. Her light-brown skin had a sheen to it, and her features were small and neat, except for her dark eyes, which were huge and soulful. Molly had only seen about three or four black people in her life, and then only in passing in Bristol, but she knew their hair was usually wiry, with tight curls. Petal’s wasn’t like that. It was curly but it felt silky, easy to put a comb through, but Cassie normally plaited it in neat little braids. That morning it was loose and hadn’t been brushed, as it stood up like a dark fuzz around Petal’s face. She had one front tooth missing, which gave her bright, welcoming smile a lop-sided look.

She shouted with delight to see Molly and ran towards her. Molly got off her bike, hugged the child and then lifted her on to the saddle and wheeled her over to the cottage.

‘I like Saturday best of all ’cos I don’t have to go to school,’ Petal said. ‘And it’s the best Saturday because you’ve come.’

Cassie must have heard Petal speaking, because she came out of the cottage. She was wearing a loose, flowery smock and had bare legs and feet. She often wore this dress while doing her chores. It looked like a maternity dress, but Cassie said it was comfortable and cool.

‘Great to see you!’ She beamed. ‘Petal said just a little while ago she hoped you would come to see us today. Would you like some ginger beer? It’s home-made, and good.’

‘Go on, then,’ Molly replied, and lifted Petal down, laid her bike on the ground and sat on an old bench.

Cassie disappeared into the cottage, and Petal came and perched herself on Molly’s lap, leaning into her shoulder. ‘You don’t come here enough,’ the child said.

‘I can’t. I have to work in the shop and look after my mum,’ Molly explained.

‘Yes, I know. Mummy said everyone puts on you. I don’t know what that means really, but I think it means you are a nice person, and I wish you could come here more.’

Molly chuckled, because Petal was such an old-fashioned little thing. They had a brief conversation about school and reading. Petal could read very well; it seemed Cassie had begun teaching her before she went to school. Then Cassie came back with the ginger beer and she began to tell Molly how she made it, a long, quite involved process using yeast and sugar.