- Bystander: He's been shot!
- [Everyone turns to look at DCI Tom Barnaby, who is holding a starter's pistol]
- DCI Tom Barnaby: Well don't look at me!
- DC Ben Jones: I thought you were keen to get off.
- DCI Tom Barnaby: Not particularly. Mrs Barnaby's mother's staying for a couple of days.
- DC Ben Jones: Ah.
- DCI Tom Barnaby: Cully's turning up, too. It'll be two days of lurid medical discussions, and the footie, if permitted at all, 'll be on the portable in the bedroom.
- Muriel: The society's still going strong, I believe, and the centrepiece is the Skimmington Ride.
- DCI Tom Barnaby: As I understand it, that ride is a barbaric medieval ritual, revived by the Skimmington ladies to humiliate their menfolk.
- Muriel: Yes. I'd really rather like to see it.
- Cully Barnaby: Unmissable.
- Muriel: There. That's settled.
- [DC Jones has been collecting DNA samples]
- DCI Tom Barnaby: Successful afternoon?
- DC Ben Jones: Like blood out of a stone, sir. And that was the easy bit.