“Yes, but so what?” Dora asked defensively.

“Nothing. I’m just trying to understand where everyone fits in. And your father?”

“Dead. Less than a year after we moved out of Mill House.”

“But you still live in the village?”

“Yes, number five, Barley Row. And that’s another thing. Daisy should never have upped and left like that, leaving her poor, dreamy sister to cope with their father. Dennis Bentham is a brute. I can’t blame Doreen for leaving him.”

Constable Sparrow appeared carrying three blue plastic posts and a roll of tape. As he reached the crime scene cordon, he bent down to duck under it and dropped everything.

“Stay there, Constable,” Keya called. “I’ll help you in a minute.” She turned back to Dora, but the slight figure had already left the stone circle and was hurrying towards the edge of the coppice. She deftly ducked under the crime scene tape and disappeared amongst the trees.

But at least Keya knew where she lived.

Keya and Constable Sparrow spent the next hour at the standing stones. They reinforced the police cordon with the extra plastic poles and lengths of blue and white tape. They then searched the scene. First inside the stone circle, although Dora had efficiently tidied most of the rubbish away, and then outside it.

“Eugh,” Constable Sparrow exclaimed as he found something unsavoury in the perimeter wood.

Keya was examining the ribbons, bells and pieces of writing attached to the branches of an oak tree which stood on the edge of the wood nearest the standing stones.

Hanging from a green ribbon, there was a card with the image of an oak tree at sunrise and below it the words for a summer solstice blessing. It looked like something Aurora might sell in her shop.

Keya no longer felt a chill when she re-entered the stone circle. Perhaps she’d imagined it before. After all she’d been only too quick to point out to Ryan that there were no such thing as ancient mystical forces. But then?

A lone blackbird sang in the low branches of a tree, and she felt at peace.

Looking around, she said to Constable Sparrow, “There’s nothing more for us here.”

She didn’t know why, but she was certain that the answer to Daisy’s death did not lie at the Standing Stones.

Something stopped her before she stepped out of the stone circle and she knew, with absolute certainty, that Daisy had not died from natural causes.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Keya felt a little disconcerted after she left the standing stones and drove Constable Sparrow down to Lower Rollright.

She had no evidence, no proof that Daisy’s death was due to anything other than natural causes. But it was as if a voice had whispered to her, shouted even, while she stood inside the standing stones, and it was too insistent for her to ignore.

But she could hardly return to the station and announce that spirits at the standing stones had told her Daisy’s death was suspicious. As always, she needed to undertake this investigation as she would any other and, by doing so, discover the truth.

“Where did you say Daisy’s mother, Mrs Skinner, lived?” Keya asked Constable Sparrow.

“In a property provided by the mill, where she works,” answered the young, curly-haired constable.

“That’ll be Stone Circle Flour. I haven’t been there yet, but I think it’s on the other side of the stream, across the bridge.”

Keya passed Mrs Reid’s Rollright Stores and slowed as she approached the narrow stone bridge. She wasn’t certain there was room for two vehicles, so she waited patiently as a white van took the bridge too fast and swerved to avoid her.

“Idiot,” she muttered as she drove over the bridge.

“Aren’t you going to stop him for driving dangerously?” asked Constable Sparrow.

“I doubt he was exceeding the speed limit, and I’m not sure that chasing him across the Cotswolds to give him a warning is the best use of my time. I doubt he’d take much notice, anyway.”

They approached the entrance to the mill with a large cream sign informing them they had arrived at Stone Circle Flour.

The original three-storey, Cotswold stone mill building had been incorporated into a larger complex. The first building they passed was a large open-fronted shed with wooden pallets stacked up at one end. Between it and the old stone building was a cylindrical metal tower and a tall metal building with rows of slats instead of windows.

After the mill complex, the paved road turned into a narrow track and Keya drove for another hundred metres until they arrived at two tall stone buildings, each with four cream-painted front doors.

“I think these must be the mill workers’ accommodation,” Keya said, peering through the windscreen.

“There’s another property further along,” Constable Sparrow pointed out.

“That might be the manager’s house.” Keya wondered if she should request a warrant to search through Daisy’s possessions. Now Theo had a lawyer, he might not let her inside, but she might still try. “Do we know which one is Mrs Skinner’s?”

“Her address is 1 Mill Cottage.”

Keya, accompanied by a nervous Constable Sparrow, rang the doorbell beside the first cream door. A floral curtain in the downstairs window twitched and less than a minute later the door opened, and a gaunt, blotchy red face peered out at them.

“If you’re looking for your colleague, she left half an hour ago,” Doreen Skinner said.

“Actually, we’d like to speak to you, and ask you some questions,” Keya said, trying to sound both professional and empathetic.

“Sue said you would. Come in,” Doreen invited, submissively.

Doreen led them into a narrow corridor and through into a small high-ceilinged living room with a stained, green, two-seater sofa and a matching armchair. A lingering smell of vinegar hung in the air.

Doreen sat in the armchair and Keya sat at right angles to her on one half of the sofa.

Constable Sparrow hovered.

“Sit down, Constable,” Keya instructed before she opened her notepad. Since Inspector Sue had already visited Doreen in her role as the family liaison officer, Keya decided to skip the part about being sorry for Doreen’s loss.

“We’re sorry to intrude, but we do need more details about your daughter and your relationship with her for our investigation.”

Keya noticed Doreen wince when she mentioned relationship, but she’d come back to that. First, she wanted her interviewee to feel comfortable so she could build a rapport with her.

“This is a lovely village to grow up in. From everything I’ve heard, I presume Daisy was a happy child.”

Doreen smiled and relaxed into the armchair. “Oh, she was.”

For the next ten minutes, Keya let Doreen tell her stories of Daisy’s happy childhood in the area and at school in nearby Chipping Norton.

“I thought Daisy would be a nurse, or work with animals. She was always so kind and thoughtful, but after school she got stuck here. It was Dennis’ fault. He wouldn’t let her go. When I came back four years ago, Daisy was working in the pub and helping Dennis with his accounts and running his business. He’s a plumber, you see.”