Grey shrugged. “About a week ago,” he said. He turned to his wife. “That would be right, wouldn’t it, Celia? It was about a week ago.”

“I can’t remember,” she said indifferently.

“You’ve not been up there since Charlie went missing?”

“No,” Grey said. “Certainly not since then.”

“Was Charlie Elliot a good friend of yours?”

“Not exactly a friend. I’d met him in the Castle, of course. He bought me a few drinks.”

“Did he know you well enough to ask you a favour?”

“I don’t understand,” Grey said. “What sort of favour?”

“Did he ask you if he could camp out in your barn?”

“Of course not,” Grey said. “I wouldn’t have allowed that. He was wanted for murder.”

“What were you doing on Monday evening?”

“I was in the Castle,” Grey said. “Having a few drinks.”

“Where were you, Mrs. Grey?”

“I was here,” she said.

“Did you hear anything unusual?” he asked. She shook her head.

“If Charlie Elliot had come through your farmyard you would surely have heard,” he said.

“Not necessarily,” she said.

“But what about the dogs? Wouldn’t a stranger coming into the yard have disturbed them?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “I don’t know. Perhaps I was busy and didn’t hear them. Or perhaps Charlie got onto the hill through the fields without coming past the house.”

“Oh,” Ramsay said. “He certainly came past the house. I stopped the Land Rover on the way down and there’s a motorcycle track quite clear in the mud.”

She said nothing.

Ramsay turned again to Robert Grey. “Where were you on Saturday night?” he asked. “ On the evening of Mrs. Parry’s death.”

But before Grey could reply, Celia interrupted.

“He wasn’t here,” she said. “His mother lives in Penrith and she’s been ill for a while. He went to the hospital to visit her. You can phone his sister if you like. She’ll confirm it.”

“And where were you, Mrs. Grey?”

“I was here,” she said, then added bitterly, “I’m always here.”

She got up to take scones out of the oven and to shake them onto a wire cooling tray.

“How well did you know Mrs. Parry?” Ramsay asked. The question was directed at them both, but again Celia answered.

“Quite well,” Celia said. “ We were both on the committee of the WI. She was a good woman. I liked her.”

“Everyone seems to have liked her,” Ramsay said, “but she was stabbed to death. Have you any idea why?”

For the first time Celia Grey’s composure seemed shaken. “ No,” she said. “ Of course not. Unless it had anything to do with the development on Tower meadow.”

“Have you never considered any of your land for building, Mr. Grey?”

And this time Grey did answer, stammering in his attempt to get the words out.