“We know he arrived home at about eleven,” Ramsay said. “But his father tells us that he went out again later. Fred presumes that he’d gone back over the green to walk you home.”

“No,” she said. “ Really. I didn’t see him.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No,” she said. “Not until I was almost home. Then I saw my father.”

Tom Kerr looked up. “It was so late that I was beginning to worry about her,” he said. “I’d gone out to see if I could see her coming. I could see that she had just left the pub, so I waited for her. I didn’t see anyone else, either.”

“You knew we were looking for witnesses who had been out on Saturday night,” Ramsay said. “ Why didn’t you come forward before?”

“I wasn’t out,” Kerr said. “Not strictly speaking. I was only several yards from the front of the garage. And I’ve told you. I saw nothing.”

“When I saw Dad waiting, I began to run,” Maggie said. “ It was very cold, although he was so wrapped up you’d have thought he was out on an Arctic expedition. I didn’t see anything.”

“Did you notice if there was a light on in Fred Elliot’s cottage?” Ramsay asked.

She shook her head. “I was just so glad not to see Charlie,” she said. “I didn’t see anything else.”

There was a silence.

“Did Charlie Elliot try to get in touch with you after he left Brinkbonnie on Monday afternoon?” Ramsay asked.

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”

“We know he made a phone call on Monday night,” Ramsay said. “It wasn’t to you?”

“No,” she cried. “And anyway I wasn’t here on Monday night. I was working.”

Ramsay turned to Olive and Kerr.

“Was there a phone call here on Monday night?” he asked. “Perhaps from someone who did not answer when you picked up the receiver?”

But they shook their heads. “We were here all evening,” Olive Kerr said, “and the only call was for Tom from the vicar.”