Colin had been a combination of sheepish and frantic. He too had heard the news about Greg from Malcolm. Not for the first time, Joanne had found herself relieved that the arrest had been made at the hotel rather than at Beanach, otherwise she would have had the job of telling everyone.

‘Greg called me this morning,’ she’d told Colin. ‘He sounded okay. He said you would look after the dogs.’

Colin had asked what she would do. Stay in Blackrig or go home?

‘I’m not leaving,’ she’d said with certainty.

He’d seemed pleased by that and didn’t question whether it would be at Beanach or in the village.

‘Any word of Stratton going?’ she’d asked.

At that, Colin’s face had clouded over. ‘The women and some of the men are leaving soon. Stratton and Chalmers are staying on. Stratton looked quite pleased that Greg had been arrested.’ He’d sworn under his breath at that point. ‘I think he’s hanging about to see if he’s formally charged. The bastard hinted to me that I might be taking over. As if I would.’

‘The police will let Greg go,’ Joanne said. ‘Caroline will testify that she was at Beanach with him that night, after the ceilidh.’

Whether she was sure of that or not, her announcement had cheered up Colin no end. So much so that it had lifted her spirits too.

Reaching the end of the drive now, she turned towards the village. If Kath wasn’t at home, she’d check in with Malcolm at the hotel. Just thinking about talking this over with Kath and Malcolm lightened her load.

Surely they held enough sway with Caroline to make sure she kept her word to Greg to ‘have his back’, despite the fact that Caroline hated that she was still here?

Reaching the village, she noted that the police interviews were still being conducted as evidenced by the cars lined up around the hall. Surely that was a good sign and hopefully meant that they hadn’t totally settled on Greg as the guilty party?

The car park held a few campervans, but the real influx would happen, according to Greg, when the English schools broke up in a couple of weeks.

As for the press, she couldn’t identify anyone in particular who might be here for the murder story . . . except me, she thought.

That was until a couple of blokes suddenly emerged from a car, and strode swiftly in her direction.

‘Come away in,’ Kath said as she opened the door before Joanne had time to knock. ‘The bloody press is here, which was bound to happen.’

Once inside the sitting room, she urged Joanne to take a seat, then gave her a studied look.

‘You look a bit peely-wally. Are you okay?’ she said.