“Do you know where Max is?” he asked. “We need to find him to tell him what’s happened. Besides, his wife is very worried about him.”

“No,” she said. “ I haven’t seen him since the night you took me in for questioning.” She grinned briefly. “He was there in the flat when the policeman came to fetch me.”

She paused. “He’ll be hiding,” she said. “Poor Max.”

“You must have thought the note arranging to meet you at Brinkbonnie was from Max,” he said. “And you went to meet him.”

“Yes,” she said. “It looked like Max’s writing. James must be an expert in forgery, too.”

She looked up at him. “ How could James know about Max and me. I suppose he guessed.”

“Apparently,” Ramsay said, “ when he realised you suspected him of blackmail, he searched your desk at work. There was an old letter from Max. It was rather explicit. It even mentioned where you met.”

She sat, deflated and very sad, so he felt sorry for her. To cheer her up, he said, pleading: “Tell me the rest of it then. Tell my why James Laidlaw murdered Alice Parry.”

She brightened immediately. “Henshaw had bought James off,” she said. “You must have worked that out.”

Ramsay remained impassive. He did not want to disappoint her and spoil her story. But he had worked it out. After the discussion with Tom Kerr, the explanation was inevitable. Henshaw hadn’t bribed community activists as Jack Robson had thought, he hadn’t needed to. Any village event is considered entirely unimportant until it is reported in the local newspaper. The story gives it credibility. With James Laidlaw in his pocket Henshaw could dictate the image the public received of his development. And of the developer, Ramsay thought, remembering the picture in the Express of Henshaw surrounded by adoring toddlers. Then he remembered the evening he had gone to the Laidlaws’ house and the interview being interrupted by an angry visitor. He realised now that the visitor was Colin Henshaw, furious because he thought James Laidlaw would break their deal.

Mary seemed encouraged by Ramsay’s silence and continued: “Henshaw wouldn’t talk to me, but I think he started paying James after the first editorial about the Brinkbonnie development. He had lots of other plans waiting to be approved by the planning department and he wouldn’t want bad publicity at that stage.”

“Tell me Mary,” he said, “ exactly what you think happened.” He said it to humour her because she needed to feel clever and in control after the assault on the sand dunes. James Laidlaw had already admitted the whole thing to Hunter. But he said it, too, because she was lively and funny and he did not want the conversation to end.