‘She told me she’d promised her parents to stay clean. She wanted to go to art college in the autumn. She never got there, though, did she?’

The contrast between Kath’s judgement of Ailsa and Caroline’s was stark.

‘Caroline hated her. She told me the drugs story and that Ailsa chased Greg, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with her.’

‘Caroline thinks she owns Greg. She doesn’t.’ Kath rose. ‘Now, I’m going along to see if I can catch her at the shop. Feel free to stay here . . .’

‘I’d rather go—’ She was about to say ‘home’ but swiftly changed it to ‘back to Beanach’.

‘Have you enough food up there?’

‘Plenty,’ Joanne assured her, although she wasn’t sure whether she could eat it.

Greg

Snyder was observing him thoughtfully, as though there was something about him he just couldn’t fathom.

You and me both, Greg thought.

This time he’d decided to say nothing. He also had a lawyer present, a Mr McGann, arranged by Malcolm. Greg was grateful to his old friend for doing that, although he would still have preferred to answer Snyder’s questions rather than say ‘no comment’.

He was also keen to find out why they’d picked up Josh, because Josh’s voice in the corridor had sparked another memory from that night.

When Ailsa had arrived at his door, she’d been seriously out of breath, and he’d realized she must have been running. He’d assumed she’d been keen to get to Beanach to tell him exactly what she thought of him for standing her up, but later he’d noticed that her legs were scratched quite badly. When he’d asked about it, she’d brushed him off, saying she’d taken a short cut through the heather.

He remembered the cat calls at the door as she’d left. Might Josh and his gang have followed her? Maybe even given her a hard time?

Snyder’s voice brought him back from his reverie. ‘Mr Taylor, Ms Campbell has been in and given a statement. She says she was not at Beanach with you on the night in question.’

Before Greg could say anything, Mr McGann stopped him with, ‘My client has no comment.’

Greg’s mind was racing. Why had Caroline withdrawn her alibi?

This time it was DS Reid who gave him the reason. ‘It seems Ms Campbell was unaware that you had sex with Ailsa Cummings on the night in question.’

It was just as he’d imagined. Once Caroline knew he was lying about that night, the game was a bogey, as they’d used to say as kids.

After this revelation, both Snyder and DS Reid left, and Mr McGann said his piece.

‘Ms Campbell contradicting her previous statement is unfortunate. However, they have until eleven p.m. tonight to charge you or they will have to let you go.’