“Why are you here?” she asked. “I don’t understand what it has to do with us.”

“It’s to do with everybody,” he said, suddenly angry. “Everyone in Brinkbonnie. Alice Parry and Charlie Elliot lived here. Elliot’s body was found in the small stone barn on the hill behind your house. The land is owned by your neighbours, the Greys. You all have an interest in getting the thing resolved.”

“Yes,” she said, though he could not tell if she understood. “ Yes, I see that.”

“So,” he said gently. “ Will you tell me where your husband was on Tuesday morning?” He watched her face, saw her prepare to lie then change her mind.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He did go out very early. I heard him go and it was still dark. I presumed it was work.”

“Did you ask him why he left so early?”

“No,” she said. She gave no explanation for the lack of communication between them. “No.”

“And what about Saturday night?” Ramsay asked softly. “ He did go out, didn’t he, after Alice Parry left your house?”

“Yes,” she said, and began to cry. Tears were her usual weapon against confrontation. “ I don’t know where he was. He won’t tell me.”

“What happened when Mrs. Parry was here on Saturday night?” Ramsay asked. She was so distraught that he hoped she would answer without thinking, under the spell of his sympathy. “It wasn’t a cosy little chat after all, was it?”

But if he expected her to be honest, he was disappointed. She looked up sharply and he knew she was preparing to lie.

“It was!” she said. She seemed terrified. “It happened just like Colin told you.”

“There’s no reason to be frightened, you know,” he said. “ We can give you all the protection you need.”

“No!” she cried. “I don’t need protection from Colin. He’s my husband. You’re mad.”

She was almost hysterical and seemed not to care that he did not believe her. He sat in silence, hoping that she might grow calmer and volunteer to change her story, but she got up and fetched a packet of cigarettes from her handbag.

She lit one, her hands shaking. Eventually she did regain her composure, but her story did not change.

“You must understand,” she said at last, “ that Colin and Mrs. Parry got on very well that evening. She was angry when she arrived, but by the time she left, things had been sorted out between them.”

“How had things been sorted out?” Ramsay asked. “What did your husband say to Mrs. Parry to make her change her mind?”

“Nothing,” she said awkwardly, but she would not meet his eyes. “There was nothing to tell. She realised, I suppose, that the battle had been lost. There was nothing she could do to make him change his mind.”