‘No, I didn’t. Not the next morning either. And you can check that with Craig. We both got sloshed and fell asleep in the living room. But not before he told me he was going to Bash Barn on Christmas Day. I’d forgotten it was happening so I said I might as well join them. He called Floyd Tasker who was organising it and that was that.’

‘Then Craig Lawrence is one of the guys you were with this morning?’

‘Yeah. He’s the one with the bald head and tattoo on his face.’

James suddenly remembered talking to the guy in the barn.

‘And on Christmas Day you returned to your flat around lunchtime, didn’t you?’ he said.

‘That’s right. I needed to get the car home so I left before Craig. After I’d packed a bag, I walked up to the end of the street and he picked me up there.’

So, that was why he hadn’t turned up on any CCTV cameras, James thought.

‘We found photos of Charlotte in the bin at your flat,’ James said. ‘They’d been torn up. Was that you?’

‘Yeah. I was really pissed with her and if she’d been there, I would probably have slapped her.’ His eyes suddenly filled with a cold fury and he banged his fist down on the table.

‘She’d still be alive if she hadn’t threatened to shoot me,’ he said. ‘I would have got her to see sense. It’s her own fucking fault that she’s dead.’

His lawyer put a hand on his arm to stop him from continuing and he started to sob.

‘I think my client needs to have a break,’ she said. ‘And perhaps a hot drink would be a good idea.’

James turned off the recorder and told her they would come back in fifteen minutes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

James left the interview room and arranged for some coffee and biscuits to be sent in. He then asked about Craig Lawrence and was told that he’d been brought to the station and was waiting to be processed.

‘Why don’t I go and talk to him while you finish up with Savage?’ Tanner said.

James nodded. ‘That makes sense, sir. If he corroborates Savage’s alibi, we’ll have to decide whether we believe him. If we do then it means Savage is in the clear and the killings must have taken place shortly after he left the farm as the broken glass from the bottle was still on the floor and the bodies were positioned roughly where he said the three of them had been standing when he left.’

‘And this is where we have to wonder about the shoeprints in the snow that Robert Bateman claimed he saw,’ Tanner said. ‘Does it mean there was someone in the cellar the whole time? Hiding out in the space behind the wall?’