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serious for a couple of years, from what I was told. I don’t think Sean was anything serious either, he just thought he was. That was the problem.’

      ‘Tell me about the Westerby estate. I don’t know the area and I know nothing about racing.’

      ‘It’s a big place and it belongs to the Michaels family. They’re one of those horse racing dynasties and they’ve been there for several generations. When Jane McNeil was murdered, Tim Michaels was still in charge, but he died and it’s now run by his son, Harry, and daughter, Melissa.’

      ‘Is she the one who reported Jane as missing?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Who lives on the estate now?’

      ‘There’s Tim’s widow, Sally. Harry Michaels. He’s divorced. Plus Melissa, her husband, and their children. I don’t know who’s in the main house these days, but there are a number of cottages dotted around the estate. I think a few are rented out, but the rest are occupied by the family or people who work for the Michaels, like the assistant trainer and people like that.’

      ‘So Jane had one of these cottages to herself?’

      ‘She was supposed to share it with two other girls, but they’d both left at the time of her murder, so she was there on her own.’

      ‘A number of people seemed to be passing her cottage the night she disappeared. How easy is it to access the land?’

      ‘Very easy, or at least it was. The whole place is covered in public rights of way and bridle paths, and anyone used to be able to come and go in a car, according to Sean. There are three or four entrances onto the estate and none were secured at the time Jane was murdered. You could just drive through. Even though it’s private land, people used to use it as a cut-through from the A4 to avoid Marlborough town centre.’

      ‘That must have made it very difficult for the police,’ she said.

      ‘I guess so. That’s all changed now, since Harry Michaels took over. He put up security barriers everywhere to stop people driving through.’

      ‘Tell me a bit about Sean Farrell. He was older than Jane, wasn’t he?’

      He reached forwards to stub out his cigarette and nodded. ‘He’d been married before and had two kids. I don’t know why the marriage failed, but his ex booted him out and it was all very acrimonious. She even gave evidence against him at his trial, saying he was prone to violent mood swings and was overly possessive and controlling. If you ask me, the mood swings were to do with having to live with her. I met her once. She’s a right bitch.’

      ‘How did he and Jane meet?’

      ‘At the yard. He was the Michaels’ farrier. By all accounts, he was pretty successful and looked after a number of racing yards in the Marlborough and Lambourn area. He and Jane started seeing each other quite soon after she started work there.’

      ‘Let’s get to the trial. What went wrong, in your view?’

      He sighed heavily and shifted in his chair, rotating his shoulders as though they were stiff.

      ‘A number of things. Sean was found guilty on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone. None of the forensic evidence gathered at the time indicated that he was her killer. There were fresh footprints in the mud around where the body was found, but they were too big to be Sean’s, nor did they fit the boots of either of the two female riders who found the body. There was sperm on the victim’s thigh, but Sean had had a vasectomy. You’d think that all the arrows were pointing away from Sean and not at him.’

      ‘How did the police explain it?’

      ‘They said the footprints could have been anybody’s, even though the body was found nowhere near a footpath. Also, the prints were found directly around the body. But there were no footprints under it, so they must have been made after the body was dumped there, most likely at the same time. As for the sperm, the women’s changing room at the gym was out of order, for some reason, so men and women were using the same place. The police had some ludicrous theory that the sperm must have come from a used towel or something. Or, that she had had sex with someone after the Westerby party and that Sean had seen this and flipped. But nobody knows who this other man is. The police certainly couldn’t find him.’

      ‘There were no other suspects?’

      ‘Not that I’m aware of. I don’t think they bothered to look very hard, once they had Sean in their sights. All of this should have been enough to create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, but the defence team were rubbish.’

      ‘They must have had something else against him, surely?’

      ‘A woman said she saw Sean near Jane McNeil’s house on the Sunday night after the party at Westerby, but her testimony isn’t totally reliable.’

      ‘You mean Susan Wright?’

      ‘Yes. She lived in one of the other cottages down the lane. She didn’t even come forward for two weeks, as she was away on holiday when the body was found. She describes a man in a suit hammering on Jane’s front door, but the physical description’s vague, as he was facing away from the road and, at best, she could have only seen him in profile. According to his family, the last time Farrell wore a suit was at his father’s funeral, yet she says she recognized Farrell in the headlights of her car …’

      ‘So she knew him?’

      ‘She worked with Jane and knew about their relationship, so maybe that was enough for her to make the association and think it was Sean. At any rate, it was pitch-black outside, no lights on inside Jane’s cottage, and the porch light wasn’t working either. I went down to Marlborough and walked past the cottage myself, just to check. It’s set back from the road, up a bank, and there’s a hedge at the front. Even with your lights on full beam, you’d be hard pushed to see much in the front garden at night.’

      ‘You think she lied?’

      He shook his head wearily. ‘People often get things wrong, as I’m sure you know. Farrell said he went to the cottage earlier that evening to apologize for his behaviour at the gym, but Jane was still at the party, so it’s possible that Susan Wright did see him and made a mistake about the time. Alternatively, it was someone else she saw, who was also looking for Jane. Someone had tried to break in through one of the back windows, but Sean’s fingerprints weren’t found on it. So the prosecution said he must have worn gloves. But that would imply premeditation, which just doesn’t fit with his hanging around outside in full public view. He’s also not the pre-meditating type, based on what I know of him.’

      ‘Was there anything else to link him to the cottage?’

      ‘They found some partial fingerprints that might have been his inside the house, but they were old and smudged and could easily have been left over from when he was seeing Jane. There’s something else they tried to dismiss. Sean sent a text to some woman he’d just started seeing around about the time he was supposedly outside Jane’s house. The call was logged in the vicinity of his home, which is about ten miles away. The technology wasn’t as accurate then as it is now, but he couldn’t have been in both places at once. The prosecution said he had someone else, some sort of an accomplice, send the text and help him deal with the body, but they weren’t able to find any evidence that there was such a person. And why would anyone want to help him kill Jane? It just doesn’t add up.’ He looked at her challengingly.

      She had to agree; it all sounded farfetched. ‘What about the woman who saw him loading a piece of carpet into his van on Sunday morning?’

      ‘He doesn’t deny doing it. He says it was an old piece of carpet he took out of his living room, which he then took to the council dump. The police, of course, imagine it was either covered in blood or something, or that he used it to transport her body. Just because they weren’t able to find it, it doesn’t mean he was lying. The dump is used for recycling all sorts of household stuff and people just go and help themselves to whatever they want. The simple explanation

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