Farmers, horsey folk, smallholders, have to be tough and suck it up. They have to be able to get up in the morning and get on with stuff, they don't sweat the small stuff. Remember French and Saunders, when one chops off her finger and feeds it to the dog? Well, there you go. At what point would Ralph have left a manic, crazed Sheila, waving a loaded rifle about, and run downstairs to call a lazy, harvest-exhausted Jeremy for help, bearing in mind that he might have slept through the phone ringing? Bit of a gamble, when he could have just called the police himself (no proof of that, even after 27 years) or run outside and shouted for help. Blood on the cupboard, and blood on the surface. But no blood on the phone. It doesn't really work, does it? And, of course, when the situation was so desperate, why did Jeremy call Julie first? It was a shared phone, in the hall. Anyone in that house could have answered, wasting more valuable minutes.