Free Narrow is the Way by Faith Martin

didn’t sound the type to keep her light under a bushel.
    ‘But I know she was hoping he would,’ Mandy ploughed on. ‘He was smitten right enough, I know that. Mind you, his dad was dead set against it. She said he’d once told Roger that he’d marry Julia over his dead body. Tres Victorian, as Julia put it. She used to tease Roger about his dad’s old-fashioned ways a lot.’
    ‘Do you think she chose to wear a wedding dress to the fancy dress party as a hint to Roger?’ Hillary asked. ‘Or do you suppose she wanted to cock a snook at his father?’
    Mandy laughed. ‘Probably both, knowing Julia. You know, now I come to think of it, I was with her when she tried on the outfit at the fancy dress shop, and she did say that wearing it would put old pig-features in a tizzy. I ’spect she meant Mr Greenwood.’
    ‘Do you know what Mr Greenwood had against Julia as a prospective daughter-in-law?’ Hillary asked, genuinely curious now.
    ‘Oh, I ’spect he thought she wasn’t good enough for his precious Roger, or something. He wanted him to marry some big land-owning farmer’s daughter or some Sloane type. Not that Mr Greenwood is so upper crust himself, mind. Julia said he was no better than her or her family. His ancestors were some sort of feed-and-grain merchants. Nothing to be so snotty about, Julia said.’
    ‘So Roger was the ‘real thing’ then? But she’d had plenty of boyfriends before him?’ Hillary probed carefully.
    ‘Why not?’ Mandy shot back belligerently, instantly on the defensive. ‘What’s wrong with that nowadays? Julia was always careful about … you know … stuff. Getting AIDS and all that. Men have been sowing their wild oats for centuries. Now a woman can do the same.’
    Although it was the slightly awkward and shy MandyTucker who was speaking, Hillary could clearly hear the voice of Julia Reynolds. She wondered if Mandy had actually agreed with her friend’s liberated, bold stance, or whether, at heart, the placid, shy Mandy had felt uncomfortable having such a voracious man-eater as a friend. If she had, she’d never admit to it now.
    ‘So, she wasn’t seeing anyone else? There’d be no reason for Roger Greenwood to feel jealous?’
    Mandy ducked her head and began to fiddle with the cigarette packet again.
    ‘Mandy? Remember what we talked about before we started?’ Hillary chided gently. ‘Your friend was strangled, which almost certainly means by some man who felt enraged by her, or betrayed. You can see why this is important.’
    Mandy chewed her bottom lip unattractively, then sighed. ‘Well, there was someone else. I don’t know who he was. Julia just called him her bit of rough on the side. But she wasn’t serious about him. It was Roger she was after.’
    Hillary could see the other girl was getting ready to dig her heels in stubbornly, and decided to change tack. There’d always be others willing to talk about Julia’s peccadilloes. And if she knew human nature (and she did), plenty of others. A girl like Julia was bound to have made enemies in the female community – girls who’d had boyfriends snaffled in the past, as well as girls, or even mature women, who envied Julia her beauty and independence.
    ‘OK, so tell me what else you can about Julia. What did she like doing? Did she have any hobbies?’
    Mandy, clearly relieved at the change in subject, shrugged. ‘Well not really. I mean, the thing is, Julia would get really enthusiastic about things, but they never lasted.’
    ‘For example?’
    Mandy thought about it, then nodded. ‘OK. There was this time at school, f’r’instance. We had this guest speaker in assembly once, one of these Greenies. He was all set to stand for the Green Party or Greenpeace or whatever. Anyway, he went on and on about how the countryside was beingpoisoned, and how each year there were less and less swallows making it back to the British Isles because the Spaniards kept eating them when they flew over the