Upon arrival, Smiley becomes a victim of village gossip, on account of his wife, Ann, and her childhood connection to Carne. Now that they are living apart, Smiley is privately ridiculed by many of the town's occupants. Smiley is introduced to the town's police chief, who shares details about the case with Smiley. Rode was found alone in her house by her husband, and had been killed in a period of time where he claimed to be out of the house, returning to Fielding's house to collect his bag which he had forgotten, and contained many of the students' exams which he needed to mark. Any footprints were lost in the subsequent increased police presence at the house after the body was discovered. The chief's superior believes that the murder was perpetrated by a homeless madwoman who Rode knew, but Smiley remains unconvinced. He also witnesses invidious class division between "town and gown" which is superimposed upon a religious division between adherents of the Church of England and Nonconformists. As the wife of a public school teacher, and as a nonconformist, Stella Rode occupied a low rank in the local social hierarchy, especially in the estimation of Carne's upper crust.