“Sorry,” she said. “It isn’t very comfortable.” She sat on the floor, her long, smooth legs straight before her, her ankles crossed. She began to dry her hair.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“You had a party on Saturday night,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, unbothered, unafraid. “It was my birthday on Sunday. Did the neighbours complain about the noise? I don’t know why. We invited them all to come.”

“No,” he said. He was finding the interview very difficult. “It’s not that. Was Mary Raven at the party?”

“Yes,” she said. Her hair was long and fine. She pulled out the tangles with her fingers. “ She was here. She stayed the night. She was too drunk to drive home.”

“How did you meet her?”

“I can’t remember exactly.” She considered, frowning. “ She was at university, I think, with some of my friends. I share the house with a couple of postgraduates. I probably met her through them. She always seems to be around. Of course, she’s a lot older than me.” She took the damp towel from her shoulders and folded it on the floor. “What’s this all about?”

“Miss Raven was in Brinkbonnie on Saturday afternoon. We need to eliminate her from the Alice Parry murder. It’s only a formality.”

“Oh.” For the first time she was shocked, even impressed. She looked at Hunter through long, fair eyelashes. “How exciting.”

“What time did she arrive at the party?” he asked.

The girl shrugged. “ She was late,” she said. “We didn’t get home ourselves until the pub shut and she turned up soon after, perhaps eleven-thirty, a quarter to twelve. She was definitely here by midnight. They all sang ‘ Happy Birthday’ to me when the clock struck twelve and I remember Mary joining in. She’s got a terrible voice.”

“And she didn’t leave the party after that?”

“No,” the girl said. “I’ve already told you. She was too drunk. I think she’d been drinking before she got here.”

“Was Miss Raven on her own at the party?”

“What do you mean?” She seemed already to have lost interest and was looking vacantly out of the window.

“Did she have a boyfriend with her?”

The girl smiled, her attention caught again. “ Oh, no,” she said. “We’re never allowed to meet Mary’s boyfriend. He’s a deadly secret. She only talks about him when she’s been drinking and then she starts to cry.”

“Who is he?” Hunter asked.

“I’ve told you I don’t know. None of us have ever seen him.”

“But she must have told you something about him.”

She smiled again. “Nothing useful,” she said. “Only that he’s handsome, stimulating, sensitive. And married.”

“How long has she known him?”

“I think it all started last summer. She disappeared from the scene for a while then, and she’s never gone out with anyone else since.”