She shook her head. “ No,” she said. She turned away to pour coffee into tall blue mugs. “I expect it was one of the girls from the village hanging round the bus shelter for the lads.”

She handed coffee and sugar to Ramsay, and they waited for him to speak again.

“There was a discussion on Saturday night about Mrs. Parry’s will,” he said. “If she’d carried out her threat and refused to leave the Tower to James, presumably you would have benefited.”

“Yes,” Max said vaguely. “I suppose we would.”

“That must have put some stress on your relationship with your brother.”

“I don’t know,” Max said. “We’ve never been particularly close. He’s ten years older than me. When you’re a child, that’s too big a gap for friendship. He was always like an uncle, a bit prim and pompous. I resented him rather. We used to go to the Tower together when Alice asked us because it pleased her, but we rarely meet each other socially otherwise.”

“Can you explain his reluctance to help Mrs. Parry in her campaign against the new houses in Brinkbonnie?”

“Oh, yes,” Max said. “It would have been a matter of principle to him, of ethics. He’s a great one for editorial independence.”

There was a moment’s silence while Ramsay drank coffee, then set the mug carefully on the table.

“We’ve discovered who wrote the anonymous letter to Mrs. Parry,” the inspector said. “It was Charlie Elliot. Do you know him?”

“I’ve met him in the pub a couple of times. Has he been arrested?”

“Not yet. We’re having some difficulty in tracing him.”

Judy was sitting on one of the wooden chairs and turned it to face the policeman. As the legs moved over the tiles, they made the harsh sound of chalk on a damp blackboard.

“Do you think he killed Aunt Alice?”

“We don’t know,” Ramsay said. “ Not yet.” He stood up. Judy saw that his coat was creased and crumpled from where he had been sitting. She thought that he probably lived on his own. He made his way up the stairs towards the front door and Max followed. At the doorstep he hesitated, as if reluctant to leave, then turned quickly and walked over the frozen path to his car.

In the kitchen Judy was stacking plates in the dishwasher. Max stood beside her and stroked a strand of hair from her neck.

“Leave that,” he said. “ I’ll do it. You look exhausted. You should go to bed.”

“All right,” she said. She stood and faced him. “Are you coming, too?”

“Soon,” he said. “ I’ll be up soon. I’ll just do this.”

She nodded and made her way slowly upstairs.