4
The next day I went to the rather grandly named Village Emporium, the local grocery store, for fresh milk and bread. The grey-haired shopkeeper, Maud, put down a glossy magazine she was reading and peered at me over her rimless glasses.
‘It was you discovered the body, wasn’t it?’
She nodded excitedly as she spoke, making her mass of tightly curled grey hair quiver. She was so inquisitive, it surprised me that she had been absent the previous evening, when the news had been discussed at length in the pub.
‘It must have been a terrible shock,’ she went on, staring at me with a shrewd expression. ‘You’ve heard the poor woman was murdered?’
I had heard nothing of the sort beyond idle speculation, and gave a noncommittal grunt.
‘If you ever want to talk, you know where I am,’ Maud s
