'It's about a film you made,' said Pascoe. 'Droit de Seigneur.'

'Oh aye. Which was that one?'

'Can't you remember?'

'They don't often have titles when we're making them, not real titles, any road.'

Briefly Pascoe outlined the plot.

'Oh, that one,' said Mrs Abbott. 'What's up?'

'It's been suggested,' said Pascoe, 'that undue violence may have been used in some scenes.'

'What?'

'Especially in the scene where the squire beats you up, just before the US cavalry arrive.'

'You sure you're not mixing it up with the Big Big Horn?' said Mrs Abbott.

'I don't think so,' said Pascoe. 'I was speaking figuratively. Before your boy-friend rescues you. You remember that sequence? Were you in fact struck?'

'I don't think so,' said Mrs Abbott. 'It's six months ago, of course. How do you mean, struck?'

'Hit on the face. So hard that you'd bleed. Lose a few teeth even,' said Pascoe, feeling as daft as she obviously thought he was.

'You are one of them funny buggers,' she said, laughing. 'Do I look as if I'd let meself get beaten up for a picture? Here, can you see any scars? And take a look at them. Them's all me own, I've taken good care on 'em.'

Pascoe looked at her un-made-up and unblemished face, then examined her teeth which, a couple of fillings apart, were in a very healthy state.

'Yes, I see,' he said. 'Well, I'm sorry to have bothered you, Mrs Abbott. You saw nothing at all during the making of the film that surprised you?'

'You stop being surprised after a bit,' she said. 'But there was nowt unusual, if that's what you mean. It's all done with props and paint, love, didn't you know?'

'Even the sex?' answered Pascoe sharply, stung by her irony.

'Is that what it's all about then?' she said. 'I might have known.'

'No, really, it isn't,' assured Pascoe, adding, in an attempt to re-ingratiate himself, 'I've been at your house by the way. I said I was a washing-machine salesman.'