“I’ve been through all the records,” Robson said. “I’ve gone back five years. I’m sure Henshaw’s found some way of manipulating the system. He even managed to get planning permission for sites where other developers had previously been turned down.

“So how’s he doing it?”

“It’s nothing to do with the council,” Robson said. “ I’ve already told you I’m certain of that.”

“Is it one of the officials then? Someone in the planning department?”

“No,” Robson said. “I think the corruption is more grassroots than that. You can have a village with a well-organised community group that successfully fights off any development, then along comes Henshaw and miraculously all the opposition disappears. It seems to happen again and again.”

Ramsay was listening impassively. “ Tell me your theory,” he said.

Robson paused and poured out more tea.

“Most protest groups have one or two activists who do all the work,” he said. “ The rest turn up at the meetings—if the weather’s not too bad and there’s nothing good on the telly. It’s the same in any political organisation, and in most places you find the same people running everything—they’re school governors, on the parish council, even running the WI. If Henshaw managed to threaten, bribe, or blackmail the activists in each group, there would be no real opposition left. The organisation would fall apart. Then the Department of the Environment inspector would think that no-one cared sufficiently about the development to make a fuss and he would let it go through.”

“But to prevent your activists from being effective, Henshaw would have to have detailed information on people all over Northumberland. It hardly seems likely.”

“He’s got a lot of contacts,” Robson said. “A lot of people owe him favours. And we know he’s used dirty tactics in the past. Besides, he wouldn’t have to do it in every case. Only when it seemed likely that other methods wouldn’t work.”

Ramsay had been standing throughout the conversation and moved to the window to look down the dene. His mind was working very quickly and he felt suddenly light-headed. For the first time he had a plausible motive for Alice Parry’s murder. She had the confidence of everyone in the village. If Henshaw had chosen leading members of the Save Brinkbonnie group as victims of his persuasion, it was quite possible that Alice would have heard about it. Perhaps, when she went to see Henshaw in an attempt to buy back the land, she had tried some gentle blackmail of her own. Ramsay imagined her standing up to the developer: “ Sell me the land or I’ll tell everyone what methods you’ve used to get your own way. My nephew’s a newspaper editor. He’ll be glad of the story.”