She looked at her watch. “ That beef’ll be burnt to a cinder,” she said. “You’ll have to let me go or we’ll have no lunch today.”

“Yes,” he said. “ I’ve nearly finished.” She stood up in an attempt to persuade him to go, but he remained where he was for a moment.

“Mrs. Kerr,” he said, “ why didn’t you have dinner with the family last night? Wasn’t it usual for you to join them?”

“Yes,” she said. “ I usually had dinner with them on St. David’s Day. Mrs. Parry always invited me. But I had my own problems and I wouldn’t have been very good company.”

Then Ramsay did stand up and say that he would not take up any more of her time. As he left the house he saw Tom Kerr at the end of the corridor, peering out of the shadows to be sure that he had gone.

Ramsay walked back to the Tower slowly, his hands in his pockets, taking in every detail of his surroundings. He might have been a tourist. At first there was no-one else about. Even the Castle Hotel seemed almost empty. Inside, he supposed, Olive Kerr’s daughter would be serving the customers who had no Sunday dinner to hurry home to. By the main gate into the churchyard was the bus shelter where Stella had seen the teenagers on the night of Alice Parry’s death, and Ramsay stood there for a moment to shelter from the wind. As he waited, unnoticed, two boys dressed in black leather walked past. They seemed young, all the teenage bravado driven out of them by the cold, and they were whispering together, more like gossiping girls than boys. As they walked past he heard one of them say with the extravagance of the young: “ If my dad finds out he’ll kill him.”

Then they were gone. Ramsay wondered if he should chase after them to find out if they had been in the bus shelter on the previous night, but he turned back towards the Tower. There was more to be done there and the boys would be easy enough to trace in a place the size of Brinkbonnie. He walked into the churchyard and followed the path Alice Parry would have used on the day of her death coming back from the village hall. Ramsay wished he had known her. He thought he would have liked her.

Olive Kerr lifted the heavy meat tray out of the oven and clucked over it before setting it on top of the cooker to keep warm. Tom had followed her back into the kitchen and stood, waiting for her to speak, prepared to offer any comfort or reassurance she needed. But when she turned to face him, she said nothing about Alice Parry.