"Ellen?" asked Jess quietly, "what is it?"
"It's that new lass-you know. Her family buys every house in the village as it comes up for sale."
Jess knew all right. It had become a real bone of contention in the local community. The Mills were obviously wealthy and used their money to snap up property in the area. The villagers couldn't compete, and their kids were forced to move away to the town.
"Do you mean Laura?" Jess struggled to remember their names.
"That's the one. When our Sarah took up with her, she changed. Started acting superior like. Didn't seem to feel I was good enough for her anymore. I don't know what her Dad would have said, if he'd been alive."
The tears started to flow again. "That makes it all the worse. You see, we weren't on good terms, Sarah and me. And now she's dead, and I can't tell her I'm sorry. When I think of some of the things we said to each other, all the times we argued. I can't bear it!"
The poor woman broke down completely, and Jess decided to call the doctor. It had only been a couple of hours since she'd asked David Stuart to go out to Sarah. Sylvia Paterson had found her lying at the bottom of Lowther Crag, the suicide note stuffed in her jeans pocket. But the doctor had a surprise in store for Jess.
"I've been trying to get hold of you. It seems things aren't as straightforward as we thought. It wasn't suicide."
"But the note. Are you saying she just fell?"
"She was killed, Jess. She'd been dead at least three hours before Sylvia found her. Yet Brian Simpson walked past that way with his dog an hour before, and there was definitely no body there then. Now how the hell does a dead girl throw herself off a cliff?"
Jess put the phone down and took a deep breath. What on earth was she supposed to tell Ellen?
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