Scared to Live by Stephen Booth

My grandfather was a cowman there. He worked for the Beeley family all his life. It's gone now, and so have the Beeleys.' 'One of my colleagues is talking to Mr and Mrs Ridgeway. Do you think they might have known Miss Shepherd well, then?' 'We couldn't say.' 'Don't you talk to the Ridgeways either?' The Birtlands glanced at each other, exchanging some thought that they decided not to share with their visitor. 'They moved into the village about the same time as Miss Shepherd,' said Birtland finally. 'So I suppose we tended to associate them together in our own minds. We didn't know where any of them came from. Being located where we are, at this end of Pinfold Lane, we've started to feel as though we've been cut off from the rest of the village by incomers.' 'I see.' Birtland looked at him expectantly. 'You haven't asked us yet whether we heard anything,' he said.
    'It was the next question, sir.' 'Ah, good. Well, we've been thinking about it since we heard that Miss Shepherd had been killed. Was she shot?' Cooper leaned forward. 'Did you hear shots on Saturday night?' 'Well, that answers my question,' said Birtland with a chuckle. 'We think maybe we did.' 'What time would that have been?' Birtland reached out to pat his wife's hand again. 'We disagree on that, I'm afraid.' 'Ted thinks it was about two o'clock in the morning, but I think it was more like three,' she said. 'I don't sleep too well sometimes, and I'm often starting to come awake by then.' 'But you didn't look at the clock to make sure?' 'No, we didn't. We didn't take much notice, you see. We often hear people shooting around here. We always have, all our lives. As long as the shooting isn't too near our house, we don't bother. I don't think Ted even woke up. If he did hear the shooting, he must have gone straight back to sleep, that's all I can say.' Birtland laughed. 'I don't suppose that's much use to you.' 'Could you say how many shots you heard?' asked Cooper, afraid to go back to the DCI with anything so vague. 'Two or three,' said Mrs Birtland. 'Or four,' said her husband. Cooper sighed. 'Thank you.' 'We would have come forward anyway when we heard somebody had been killed, you know. But we were told you'd be calling today.' 'That's all right.' Mrs Birtland accompanied Cooper to his car. 'I'm sorry if we don't appear very hospitable,' she said. 'Don't worry. But if you do happen to remember anything more about Miss Shepherd, or about any visitors she had ' 'Yes, of course, we'll let you know.'
    'Thank you.' Frances Birtland looked up the street towards the village. 'You know, we always thought we'd be comfortably off when we got old,' she said. 'But look at us now. There are young kids around here who get more pocket money to spend than we get in pension. The world's gone crazy, don't you think? And it was just our luck to be at the wrong end of our lives when it happened.'
    Cooper knew what Fry would have said if she'd been at the Birtlands' with him. 'So much for neighbourliness. What happened to that famous community spirit you're always telling me about, Ben?' When he picked her up, Fry was about a hundred yards further down the road from the Ridgeways' barn conversion, on the corner of the High Street. She seemed to be looking at the square tower of the church rising above yew trees in the graveyard, and at a cottage next to it, with honeysuckle hanging from the roof of the porch. 'Any luck?' he said when she got into the car. 'They didn't hear anything. Their double glazing is too good. You?' 'The Birtlands might have noticed the shots. But they've been here all their lives, and they're used to hearing people shooting rabbits.' They pulled in through the gates of Bain House and parked behind a dog handler's van. 'By the way, the Ridgeways think Rose Shepherd was a foreigner,' said Fry. 'That's funny. The Birtlands think the Ridgeways are foreigners.' Fry snorted. 'They're from Luton.' 'Exactly.' 'Oh, I see. So the Ridgeways are the awful incomers.