Nine.

The pub, surprisingly enough for a lunchtime, was fairly quiet. Except for an unkempt looking drunk at the bar, a gruff looking landlord and a middle-aged man crying bitterly into his pint.

That man, as it turned out, was Bradford Shaw.

"You think it was me don't you?" he croaked miserably. Barnaby gave him his best smile,

"Why should we mister Shaw?"

"Because Terry's dead."

They couldn't argue with that, not that they wanted to. Scott, as usual, was eager to pursue the more sordid of their lines of inquiry.

"Mr. Shaw, I gather you are aware of the allegations involving Mr Miller and your wife?"

It was as tears welled in the man's puffy eyes that Barnaby shot a look of exasperation towards his DS. Scott sighed, that was a 'yes' then. He scribbled it down.

There was very little questioning of the man after that, but the drunken man at the bar verified Shaw's alibi, which was followed, a little more helpfully, by the bartender's confirmation as well. So, with fewer questions than they'd hoped for answered, the two detectives set off in search of Mrs Shaw, a teacher at the local primary just across the green.

"I don't know sir," Scott sighed as he picked his way across the newly painted white lines, "I'm used to guilty men crying – usually because they've been caught – but bawling your eyes out over something you didn't do? That's a new one for me."

Barnaby threw his eyes skywards,

"Perhaps he was feeling a pang of sympathy for a former neighbour Scott."

The dark-haired Londoner snorted his disapproval,

"For a man who'd been messing around with his wife? I doubt it sir. He'd want to rip him to shreds."

"And you'd know would you?" the DCI asked with a hint of amusement. The reply he received was typical of the sort of thing he'd come to expect over the months.

"Well, being chased about a tower block in your boxers tends to make something of an impression sir." He pushed casually against the wrought-iron gate of the school, letting himself in across the tarmac playground. Barnaby stood behind him in bemusement.

"I should imagine it does."

Mrs Shaw was a tall thin woman with long brown hair and red eyes, another victim of the grief that seemed to be sweeping the village – with the exception of Mrs Miller that was. As the children poured out of the classrooms and along the corridors towards their waiting lunchboxes, Mrs Shaw beckoned the policemen into the empty classroom and into chairs.

Barnaby, fast reaching that age when the various joints in his knees and back refused to work properly, lowered himself into the tiny nursery chair with difficulty, glancing across at his tall DS, who was having similar problems, his knees up somewhere around his chin, both of them feeling utterly ridiculous.

Scott cleared his throat, mustering the dignity he had left.

"Mrs Shaw, we need ask you some questions if that's all right with you?"

She nodded mutely.

"We have reason to believe that you and Mr Miller were involved in an extra-marital affair…" her eyes snapped up to meet his, "…is that a correct?"

For a second it seemed as though she was going to deny it, but at the last moment she sighed and slumped back into her chair with dejection. She nodded silently again. Scott duly noted the admission.

"Mrs Shaw," Barnaby sat forward with his nice-guy smile firmly in place, "I hope you don't mind us asking."

She sniffed and dabbed at teary eyes with a screwed tissue she'd pulled from her sleeve.

"No, no I do understand…it's just…oh dear…" as she broke off to stifle a sob, Scott looked away uncomfortably, glancing around the room at the haphazard artwork of her class. Colourful handprints, paper cups decorated with dried pasta and big paper sheep stuck with balls of cotton wool. Finally she composed herself and Barnaby tried again. There was no point in pressing her for an alibi, she had been backstage at the time, something confirmed, somewhat reluctantly, by Miss Long, the not-so-cheery woman Scott had first interviewed.

"Mrs Shaw, do you know of anyone that might want Mr Miller dead?"

The list, as it turned out, was fairly long. As well as Mrs Miller and her mother for the infidelity, it turned out he had been widely despised by the theatre community at large.

As the schoolteacher sat and reeled off name after name, Scott bit back a long, weary sigh.

Every day was a long day in the country.