Where did it all go wrong for you, Bibi Butler? A Financial Advisor mired in debt, your company going under, your personal finances in array. You were desperate for MONEY! And then you found out that Sykes was giving the Mobile Library £10,000 in cash and you saw a lifeline! You figured out that the money would be in a safe on the Mobile and your only obstacle was getting the key off the Librarian! When he had an asthma attack, that was your chance, you could have given him anything in that inhaler.

But you didn’t. Sal the Driver told us that you heard her tell Ash that the money had been banked, so the safe was empty before you even had the chance to try and steal the key. You had no reason to hurt Ash after that. And we have no evidence to suggest your inhaler was anything other than a normal asthma inhaler. You were doing a good turn in helping him, the same as you’ve done a good turn by helping all the donkeys in Sunshine Sanctuary, bankrupting yourself and your company in the process.

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

You had history with Ash. You started Librarian training together at university and studied together for years. You were friends. You even got accused of creating crop circles together, charges which you both denied. But while Ash excelled at his studies and passed his final exams top of the class, you failed and had to repeat a year. What’s more, you both went for the same job – your dream job as Mobile Librarian – and again, where you failed, he succeeded. Now you’re on the verge of failing your course for a second time, and the final straw was your tutor telling you to use Ash’s work as an example of excellence. Consumed by JEALOUSY, you’ve turned your studies to researching poisons, and you gave Ash a deadly concoction hidden in a bottle of beer!

What you didn’t know, because you haven’t spoken to Ash in nearly a year, is that he’s now teetotal – he’s sworn off all alcohol and would never have drunk the beer that you gave him. We know that from the Case File. So even though you tried...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

You also had history with Ash – he, along with Dion DeTamble, is one of the students you accused of making crop circles in your fields. Those crop circles have cost you thousands of pounds over the years, and when the police failed to charge them you swore REVENGE, no matter how long it took. Mrs Chorlton said that she told you a week ago that one of those students was now working on the Mobile Library. We know you have access to toxic chemicals through pesticides, and Sal the Driver saw you with Ash’s thermos of tea on the day he was killed.

But Mrs Chorlton also told us that you’ve had an ‘experience with little green men’ since then, and you were found last summer with memory loss and strange marks on your skin. You’ve been reading up on it and you now think you were abducted by aliens – you don’t blame the students anymore. Even if that weren’t the case, Mrs Chorlton saw that you never even managed to get the thermos open because it was stuck fast, so you couldn’t have put any poison inside.

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

The modern success. You’ve built a whole brand around your children and you make good money and get a lot of freebies from your social media presence. But you, madam, are a liar! The children you use are not yours, but different children you’re babysitting, cleverly disguised to look roughly the same. Ash recognised you from babysitting his little sister – he knew you were lying and he was about to call you out on your shameful secret, which would have ruined you and your REPUTATION for good! Then you pushed your way onto the Mobile and sprayed him all over with some noxious liquid on the day he died!

But we have no evidence that you knew Ash had seen through your lies. Or that you know anything about poisons. And it wasn’t only Ash you sprayed from that bottle, Sykes told us you covered him in it, as well as his PA and everyone else, and nobody else died. Therefore...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Our harmless little old lady, Mrs Chorlton. You’re the only suspect who had no reason to want Ash dead – but you nearly murdered him anyway – by accident! You were about to be ousted as Chair of the Bakers Dozen baking group after over 20 years of POWER, and you didn’t like that at all. So, using your in-depth knowledge of poisonous plants, all grown in your own garden, you laced a ginger cake with a deadly ingredient.

But you also made a non-poisoned ginger cake for the Librarian and Driver of the Mobile Library, and when you handed it over you got the cake tins muddled up. A near fatal mistake! But Sal the Driver told us that you realised your mistake and came back just in time! Neither of them ate the cake, so, on this occasion...

YOU ARE NOT THE MURDERER!

Which brings me – finally – to you, Sykes! You were being BLACKMAILED! You didn’t write Oktober (Revolution) – your reading matter shows us that you’re only just starting to learn guitar, and your blackmailer suggests that the real writer was your old manager. But you’ve made a fortune from that song and lived off it ever since – if that secret was revealed you’d lose everything. You’d already paid the blackmailer some money, and they were back for more, so you had to stop them once and for all!

Then you saw a picture taken in the run up to your publicity stunt on the Mobile – a picture showing cut up letters, just like the ones used on the blackmail demand. You realised the Mobile Librarian was the son of your old manager and you put two and two together and came up with seven!

You know about poisons from helping your dad with his pest control job when you were a teenager. Verity Vantini saw you acting suspiciously with a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne and two glasses. Sal the Driver told us that you gave Ash a glass of champagne and made very sure that he drank every last drop! It was a slow working poison – you knew it wouldn’t take effect for hours and you figured you would be long gone and nobody could suspect you of administering it. But you didn’t count on me, Sykes, or should I say Derek Dodds.

YOU ARE THE MURDERER!

Detective Inspector's Note:

The real blackmailer was Bibi Butler – Dion DeTamble saw the cut up letters falling out of her handbag, Ash was just doing some collaging on the Mobile. Sykes’ money was actually helping fund the Sunshine Sanctuary for Needy Donkeys, and they were very grateful. I have advised my superiors that we should not take that matter any further.

Police Note:

Mrs Chorlton is currently helping police with their enquiries regarding a sudden case of upset tummy amongst the Bakers Dozen, and a serious incident following a Church Flower Arrangers summer picnic several years ago.