Elizabeth Crowe audibly gasped, looking between her husband and Tom. "Why ever would they think you could help?"
"It's that little spat we had after the planning consultation. You remember?"
She nodded, pursing her lips. "Strange woman, Mary." She turned to Tom immediately, shock in her expression. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude… but she was a little odd."
"Mad old bat!" Crowe said, drawing a stern glance from his wife. His expression softened as he immediately backtracked. "Sorry, Inspector. But, as my wife says, Mary was an odd one. We certainly clashed on what innovations were justifiable for the area but, aside from that, she was weird. But that's what you get for spending your entire life focussed on birds, talking to no one but the trees and that halfwit of a sister of hers."
"Daniel!" Elizabeth said, averting her eyes from both detectives in embarrassment.
"Sorry, love," he said, patting her thigh softly.
Tom sat forward, glancing to his left to see if Eric was picking up the body language as well as the nuances in the conversation. He was making copious notes, so he was confident. "Can we go back a bit? You said you fell out that night over… progress?"
Daniel Crowe nodded. "Yes. It was a planning consultation meeting set up for local residents to listen to what the developers had in mind."
"Houses?"
"No, no. Not on this occasion. This was a consultation on the proposed Norfolk Wash Wind Farm." Tom hadn't heard much about this particular project. He knew the Crown Estate had released parcels of offshore land for development of renewable technologies, but beyond that, which was what Eric had told him earlier, he was in the dark. "The firm which obtained the licence was looking for locations to bring the cabling ashore."
"Cabling?" Eric asked.
"Yes. It's all very well having these offshore wind farms, but the power needs to make landfall somewhere. It requires a switching station to connect the energy to the national grid."
Tom cupped his chin between thumb and forefinger, noticing the anniversary cards on the mantelpiece above the wood burner. Seemingly the couple had recently celebrated being married for thirty-five years. "Presumably, if Mary Beckett was opposed to this, it was the potential siting of the switching station she objected to."
"Location, size… having one at all," Crowe said with a dismissive laugh. "I mean, I know the station would be large but it has to be in order to cope with the wind farm for heaven's sake. But she was so against the development." He was becoming quite animated, wagging a finger as he spoke. "There were three proposed sites for the switching station. Not one of them was acceptable for the woman."
"She felt the construction would have damaged the environment?"
"So she said. But it's a balancing act, Inspector. If you saw the statistics for how the Sheringham Shoal project revitalised the local area, you'd see it was all worth it. The new harbour built at Wells to cope with the project rejuvenated the commercial shipping sector in the port. Not only that, but the firm ploughed money into the community, not just in jobs but in community projects. We're talking children's play areas, grants to local enterprise. Believe me, the list goes on and on."
Tom inclined his head. Crowe was making a decent argument.
"A couple of hundred years ago, Inspector," Crowe continued, "this region, after London, was the second richest in England. Agriculture and the textile industry brought people and trade from around the world to Norfolk. Then industrialisation came about, and the Mary Becketts of this world waved it away. It didn't affect us, we didn't need it. And what happened?"
It was Elizabeth who answered.
"The textile industry collapsed and Norfolk was left behind. That's what my husband thinks."
Daniel enthusiastically agreed. "And we've been paying for it ever since. Have you ever wondered why there are no motorways in Norfolk? Left behind, Inspector Janssen."
"A lot of people quite like it this way," Tom said, playing devil's advocate. For a moment he thought he saw Elizabeth nod as he spoke, but she remained impassive.
"Each to his own," Crowe said. "But now, right now, we have the opportunity to be at the centre of the next wave of industrialisation by embracing green energy. It's the future and people like Mary, bless her, need to get on board for the greater good."
"And the argument?" Tom asked, pulling the conversation back to their falling out.
"Something and nothing really. Like I said, the woman was bonkers! She got more than enough time to make her points in the meeting. I disagreed."
Elizabeth glanced sideways at her husband. Catching Tom's eye, she averted hers from his gaze, absently fiddling with her hands.
"Okay, I think that will do for now," Tom said, standing up and indicating for Eric to do the same. "One last question." Daniel nodded. "Besides your interest in regenerating the area for the twenty-first century, what do you stand to gain from the wind farm's construction?"
Crowe smiled. His wife looked at the floor.
"It's no secret, Inspector. Two of the three proposed sites under consideration are on land that I…" he looked at his wife, "that we own. There will always be those who benefit from progress. There's a two in three chance that it will be us on this occasion."
"Thank you, Mr Crowe. I appreciate your candour," Tom said. "Oh, and just for our records, could you tell us your movements for the night before last?"
"Yes, of course," Crowe said without hesitation. "I played a round of golf with a couple of the chaps, had a drink at the nineteenth hole as usual and…" His brow furrowed as he thought hard. "Yes, then I came home and Elizabeth and I had rather a nice meal. I was home by seven, as I recall."
"I see," Tom said, smiling his thanks. "And you didn't go out again that night?"
"No, not at all. Did I dear?" He looked at his wife and she
