Page 32 of Murder in the Family

Right. And I think that’s why the police tended more towards the rock theory. But if that’s what it was, the rain put paid to any chance of identifying it.

BILL SERAFINI

(working through the crime scene photos)

What you said about the repairs – I assume everything being used for that work was tested? Shovels and the like?

JJ NORTON

Absolutely.

HUGO FRASER

(looking at the plan)

There’s a large pond only a few yards away, which to my mind has ‘disposal site’ written all over it. Especially if the weapon was just random garden detritus.

JJ NORTON

Right, and yes, the pond was drained at the time. The bottom was lined with chunks of rubble and broken slabs, so another random chunk would have been next to impossible to identify, even at the best of times. But with all that water it was absolutely a non-starter, in evidentiary terms.

LAILA FURNESS

Was there any debris in the wounds or hair that would tally with the rock theory?

JJ NORTON

Good question. The answer is yes, but not enough to be definitive. Given the victim was outside andhad fallen down several steps there was always going to be a degree of contamination.

ALAN CANNING

The point about the rock theory, surely, is that a woman could wield something like that just as easily as a man.

BILL SERAFINI

(nodding meaningfully)

And Caroline was only twenty minutes’ walk away.

LAILA FURNESS

Did the friends she was with say whether she slipped out at any point?

BILL SERAFINI

‘Not that they noticed’.

But it was drinks, not dinner, so people weren’t seated. There were also at least thirty or forty guests, so it wouldn’t necessarily have been obvious if she’d disappeared for a short time.

LAILA FURNESS

But by the time she got back to the party it would have been pouring down – she’d have been pretty wet. Not to mention covered in blood. Surely someone would have noticed that.

BILL SERAFINI

Which is precisely what her lawyers said to the detectives on the case. But we’re going to try to run down some of the people who were there that night, to see if they might be willing to talk to us.

HUGO FRASER

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