“That must be Madeleine Telfer,” said Gus, “just parking her new Ford Kuga on the driveway. She’s moved upmarket since her days in that two-bedroomed semi in Biddestone village. I wonder what her husband does for a living.”
The lady of the house stood on her doorstep with key poised. Her hair and clothes looked immaculate, in keeping with her surroundings. Lydia had to remind herself that the woman was forty-three years old and had two young children.
“I’d better park on the road,” said Gus. “My beaten-up Ford will get an inferiority complex.”
“I don’t think Mrs Telfer wants you to sully her pristine driveway with your motor, anyway, guv, based on that look she gave us,” said Lydia.
Gus and Lydia walked up the short driveway to meet Madeleine Telfer.
“You’re the detectives I’m expecting, I presume?”
“We are, Mrs Telfer,” said Gus. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation indoors.”
Madeleine Telfer opened her front door, and a Bichon Frise puppy came bounding along the hallway. Lydia prevented its escape, and once the door was closed behind them, Madeleine dragged the puppy into the kitchen.
“Monty will keep yapping and making a nuisance of himself,” she said. “Please, come through to the lounge.”
Lydia wasn’t surprised at the layout of the main living room. It matched a high percentage of rooms they visited, focusing on a giant screen on the wall, and plenty of comfortable seating.
Madeleine Telfer sat in a chair by the mock fireplace with her hands together in her lap. Lydia sensed a slight tension in her manner. Old memories, perhaps.
“My name is Freeman,” said Gus. “My colleague, Ms Logan Barre, and I work with a Crime Review Team for Wiltshire Police. No unsolved murder case is ever closed. It’s a decade since the original team failed to find out who murdered your partner, Alan Duncan. We hope to have more success.”
“It’s been so long,” said Madeleine. “So much has changed. I’ll never forget Alan, or what happened to him, but surely, if there were leads to discover they would have found them at the time? What is there that you can do, apart from using advances in DNA to re-analyse the evidence they gathered? Not that they had much of that in the first place.”
“We ask questions that didn’t get asked in the original investigation,” said Lydia. “There’s always something that comes to light.”
Gus smiled to himself. In a few words, Lydia had achieved plenty. She had confirmed once more why he valued her contribution to the team so highly, and Madeleine Telfer’s reaction proved that she had a secret. How important that would be in solving the ten-year-old mystery or not remained to be seen.
“Your accent suggests you weren’t born in this part of the country, Mrs Telfer,” said Gus.
“Call me Maddy, please, everybody does,” she replied. “My family lived in a village outside Leeds. The Yorkshire accent has softened over twenty-five years, but I’ll never lose it altogether, Mr Freeman.”
“You moved to Chippenham when you were eighteen, is that right?” asked Lydia.
“I left school at sixteen, and had three firms I worked for close on me in the next eighteen months. When the unemployment rate hit ten percent, I decided that there was nothing for me up North. I came here and was fortunate to get a job at the call centre.”
“That was the company at Bumper’s Farm?” asked Gus.
“That’s right,” said Maddy. “I loved it there, great colleagues, and although there was a high turnover of staff, and pay wasn’t much to write home about, a handful of us stuck it out because we became friends.”
“Friends such as Anna Phillips,” said Lydia.
“We’re still mates today,” said Maddy. “Anna and her husband, Wayne, live nearby.”
“In Woodpecker Mews,” said Lydia. “Yes, we’re aware of where they live.”
“Why did you choose Chippenham?” asked Gus. “Did you know someone here, or have a relative living in the area, perhaps?”
“I didn’t know anyone,” said Maddy, looking at her hands in her lap. “My relatives lived in Yorkshire.”
“A daunting prospect for a young woman to leave home and travel two hundred miles to a strange town. What was your family’s reaction when you said you were leaving home? Did you apply for the call centre job before you left Leeds, or was it a necessity after you found yourself somewhere to stay? Talk us through that if you will.”
“I wanted my independence, Mr Freeman,” said Maddy. “You must have met eighteen-year-olds that have left home in search of a new beginning. There doesn’t have to be an ulterior motive.”
“Did the detectives ask about your family ten years ago, Maddy?” asked Lydia.
“Why should they? It was Alan who died. I’m not close to my parents or my brother and sister. We don’t live in each other’s pocket like some families. We have our lives to lead.”
“The grandchildren must have made a difference,” said Gus.
“I send photos of Oliver and Emily to my parents with their Christmas card. Chris is too busy with work to take time off to drive up there. They wouldn’t expect it, anyway.”
“What does your husband do for a living?” asked Gus.
“He’s a successful property developer,” replied Maddy. Lydia thought it was the most animated she’d been since they arrived.
“The file we received from the original investigation told us everything we needed to know about how you and Alan met,” said Gus. “How long had you lived in Chippenham before you got together?”
“Three years,” said Maddy.
“Did you meet anyone else in those three years?” asked Gus.
“No, I didn’t,” said Maddy.
Lydia noticed Maddy’s hands clasped together tightly, and her knuckles white. They should keep probing. There was something there.
“Did you have an unpleasant experience
