“Tell me,” he said. “What relationship do you have with your employer?”

“What do you mean?” she demanded angrily. “Relationship? Do you want to know if he is screwing me?”

He smiled, as if amused by her childishness, her lack of taste and sophistication.

“Let me tell you,” she said. “James Laidlaw and I have no relationship at all outside the office. He’s besotted with his wife.”

“You don’t meet him at all socially.”

“Occasionally,” she said vaguely. “ We have some mutual friends.”

Ramsay nodded and indicated to Hunter that he should continue the questions.

“Where were you on Saturday evening?” Hunter asked.

“In Newcastle,” she said. “At a party.” She looked at him defiantly. “I can give you the address if you like. I got drunk and stayed the night. I slept on the floor. On my own.”

“That would be very helpful,” he said.

“What time did you arrive at the party?” Ramsay asked.

“I don’t know!” She was almost shouting. “How should I know? I went home to change first. I didn’t want to get there until it had warmed up. What are all these questions about?”

“A woman answering your description was seen in the Brinkbonnie churchyard on Saturday night,” Ramsay said formally. “We need to eliminate her from our enquiries.”

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “Who saw this woman, anyway?”

“A reliable witness,” Ramsay lied.

“Why are you bothering with this?” Mary cried. “ You know who killed her. Why aren’t you out there looking for him? You’re just wasting time, my time.”

Ramsay said nothing. He knew Hunter agreed with Mary Raven. He thought they were wasting time, too. Charlie Elliot had murdered Alice Parry and run away. If he was innocent, Hunter had said, he would have come forward by now. We’ll find him. He might even have left the country, but we’ll get him in the end. Ramsay sighed. He felt his options were closing. He could not afford another failure. It was easier, perhaps, to accept the general opinion that Charlie Elliot had killed Alice Parry in a drunken rage. It was not so unlikely, after all. He stood up and then, on impulse, wrote the number of the Incident Room on a scrap of paper.

“If you remember anything,” he said, “or come across any information that might help, give me a ring. Inspector Ramsay.”

She looked up briefly and nodded, but he saw her roll the paper into a ball and push it into her pocket before returning her attention to her notebook.

In the street the policemen paused in the sunshine. Hunter wanted to get back to the Incident Room, taking phone calls, tracking down Elliot, but Ramsay seemed gripped by an obsession, haunted, Hunter thought, by the woman in the churchyard.

“I didn’t believe Miss Raven,” the inspector said. “She was lying.”