“I had been working near Warrington. I finished there about half an hour after midnight, and decided that since I was only ten minutes or so away from Colcutt, I’d pop in for a nightcap.” Time to go on the offensive, I decided. I really couldn’t afford to get into a detailed analysis of time and place. “What’s the big deal, anyway, Inspector? Still trying to get Jett in the frame? I’d have thought there wasn’t a lot of point in that now you’ve got someone in custody.”

He pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose in an exasperated gesture. “Why don’t you just leave us to do the job we’re paid to do, Miss Brannigan?”

“Are you denying you’ve arrested Maggie Rossiter?”

“If you’re so keen to find out what we’re up to, you should send that boyfriend of yours along to our press conferences,” he said sarcastically. Pity the police aren’t as good at catching villains as they are at gossiping. “At least that way you’d get hold of the right end of the stick. You still haven’t answered me. What time was it when you got here?”

“I told you, I can’t be sure. We chatted for about an hour, I’d guess, then Jett went to fetch Moira.”

“Why did he wait that long? Why didn’t he go and get her before then?”

I took a deep breath. “He went to get her then because they’d arranged to meet for a working session in the rehearsal room and he didn’t want her hanging around waiting for him. I guess he didn’t go and get her before because he didn’t know where she was.”

“How long was he away?”

“A couple of minutes. Not long enough to kill her, if that’s what you’re trying to get at. Besides, I felt her skin temperature when I tried for a pulse. She was a lot cooler than she could have got in three or four minutes.”

“Don’t tell me,” Jackson said sarcastically. “Let me guess. And she wasn’t as cold as she would have been if she’d been dead an hour, am I right?”

“That would be my judgement, yes,” I replied.

“I’m sure our pathologist will be fascinated by your expert opinion,” Jackson sighed. “When you saw the girlfriend—was she going towards the house or away from it?”

“I can’t be certain, but I think she was heading back towards the village.”

Jackson nodded. “And she looked what? Startled? Afraid? Upset?”

“She looked pretty startled. But who wouldn’t, nearly being run over in the small hours?”

“And when you went rushing off to interview her, did she happen to mention how Moira Pollock met her end?”

“No.” That I was sure about.

“And did you?” He was probing more firmly now. I began to