At the sink the woman put the last wooden spoon on the draining board, wiped her hands on a towel by the range, and turned to face the policeman. He was aware of her immense control.

“I don’t understand where all these questions are leading, Inspector,” she said. “I don’t want Ian mixed up in all this.”

“Oh,” Ramsay said easily, “I’m sure Ian will have heard the rumours in the village. He’ll know what’s been going on. He’ll know that Charlie Elliot was suspected of killing Alice Parry. And now your husband’s found his body in your barn on the hill. In my experience teenagers aren’t easily upset.” He turned back to the boy. “ What were you doing on Monday evening? Did you hear anything unusual?”

But it seemed that Ian had supplied all the useful information he had. On Monday the cold had already started and he had come straight home from school. He had been in his bedroom doing homework for most of the evening. He had not heard anything unusual. He’d been listening to records. Through earphones. His dad always complained if there was noise.

Celia Grey saw Ramsay out of the house with obvious relief. There was tension and unhappiness in the family, he thought, but as always in a serious investigation it was impossible to tell if they were the result of unrelated domestic problems or connected to the case. He paused for a moment in the yard, expecting Robert Grey to come, but the farmer had disappeared. As he walked back towards the Otterbridge Road, two Land Rovers filled with policemen drove past on their way to the hill. Hunter must have organised that, he thought. Hunter will be in his element now. He imagined the crowd of them working together, the banter, the shared drinks at the end of the day in Otterbridge, and felt lonely and left out.

But I was right about Mary Raven, he thought. She was in the churchyard that night and Charlie Elliot saw her. I was right about that. Mary Raven was the link between the village and the Laidlaws. She worked for James and had been haunting the village all that day. He knew she must be involved.