But Ramsay knew that Charlie was unlikely to return and realised with a depressing certainty that he had allowed a major murder suspect to run away. In the street outside the garage a Radio Newcastle reporter stopped him and asked for an interview, but Ramsay said he had no comment to make and hurried up the hill to the police house. He sent cars up each of the roads out of Brinkbonnie, but by then it was too late. Charlie Elliot had disappeared.

Chapter Ten

Hunter seized on the disappearance of Charlie Elliot as an excuse for activity. While the communications centre at Otterbridge put out a general description of Charlie Elliot and of the car he was driving, Hunter drove at great speed around the country lanes, hoping to make an immediate arrest. He returned to the police house in the middle of the afternoon, disappointed, but still convinced that Charlie Elliot was a murderer. Ramsay knew the danger of jumping to conclusions too quickly and cautioned patience, an open mind.

“Charlie Elliot had an alibi for the time of the murder,” he said reasonably. “His father confirmed that he was in the house by eleven. And then there was the girl he saw in the churchyard. We should be looking for her.”

“What girl?” Hunter demanded. “ Man, that was just Elliot making up stories to throw us off the scent. No-one in the Tower saw a girl. And the old man was lying to protect his son.”

“What about motive?” Ramsay said quietly. “ I thought you said no-one would commit murder for the sake of a few houses.”

“No-one sane,” Hunter said. “We know Elliot was unbalanced, unpredictable. Look at his obsession with that girl in the pub. He’s our man. He can’t have got far. We’ll have him tonight.”

But as the afternoon wore on there was no information about Elliot. No-one had seen the car. The men waiting in the police house became irritable and impatient, and to make things worse Fred Elliot was on the phone every half-hour wanting to know if his son had been found and claiming that Charlie, too, had been murdered.

At half-past six Ramsay had waited long enough.

“I’m going to Otterbridge,” he said to Hunter, “to talk to the Laidlaws. Go and sit with old man Elliot. There’s a chance Charlie will come home when he’s cold and hungry. And you’ll need to break that alibi if you’re to prove Charlie guilty. Elliot might talk while he’s so upset.”

They walked together down the street to the green, where Ramsay’s car was parked. Despite the cold, two teenage boys in black leather stood by the bus stop, smoking a cigarette, passing it between them.

Poor sods, thought Hunter. What else is there for them to do in a place like this?