Ramsay ignored the comment and continued. “We must assume that there was some connection between both murders,” he said. “So I’m talking again to everyone who was in Brinkbonnie on Saturday night. How well did you know Charlie Elliot?”

“Not at all,” she said. “ I’m not even sure that I ever met him, though I go to Kerr’s garage for petrol sometimes and he might have served me there.”

“But you knew of him?”

“Oh,” she said. “I knew of him. Staying with Alice was like taking part in a soap opera. We had to listen to the story of everyone who lived in the village. Over and over again. Charlie Elliot was infatuated with Maggie Kerr and had dropped out of the army when he found out she’d separated from her husband. Then he and Tom Kerr had a fight and Tom punched him on the nose. That was a real scandal because Tom’s a pillar of the church and it was supposed to be a deadly secret, though most of the village must have heard about it in the end. According to Alice, he felt so guilty that he didn’t feel able to sack Charlie from the job in the garage although he was being such a pain in the arse and making Maggie’s life hell. It was quite romantic, but very tedious.”

“Did Alice have any idea how the situation between Elliot and Maggie could be resolved?” Ramsay asked.

“Endless ideas,” Stella said. “All totally impractical and rather interfering. She wasn’t the saint the others have made her out to be, you know, just a nosy old woman. She even talked at one time of having Maggie and the boys to stay as lodgers at the Tower, though goodness knows what damage that would have done.”

“Did she ever talk to Charlie about Maggie?”

“Probably, though she never said. She wouldn’t have told me, anyway. She’d know I’d not approve. Charlie would have told her to mind her own bloody business. And quite right, too.”

Again, as she finished talking, she glanced at the clock. Ramsay paused and changed the subject of the conversation. “I must ask you some questions about yesterday morning,” he said. “ Charlie Elliot was killed between five and six-thirty. I have to know where everyone involved in Mrs. Parry’s case was at that time. It’s a matter of elimination. I’m sure you understand.”

“I don’t know where James was,” she said. “Asleep, I presume. We slept in separate rooms on Monday night. He was very sweet about it but said I was so restless I kept him awake. I was in rather a state on Tuesday morning — I have trouble sometimes with my nerves and it was a bad day. He was there when I woke up.”

“Were you in your room all night?” Ramsay asked.