‘A scarf, pack of herbal teabags, odds and ends we keep discovering. Actually, it’s like a little stab, every time we find something more.’ For someone who was venting her spleen not too long ago, she looked genuinely sad.

‘So you didn’t resent her that much, then?’

She laughed, deep and throaty, and smiled in my direction. ‘Oh, I resented her alright, wouldn’t you? But she was a nice kid, and no one deserves to die like that.’

‘What particularly griped you, then?’ She seemed to be quite open, and I felt there was quite a lot of leeway for digging.

‘She was young, gorgeous and brilliant.’ She shrugged her shoulders like that was stating the obvious. It seemed a bit odd coming from someone who, though slightly more mature, was beautiful, Hepburnish and probably not that shabby in the intelligence stakes.

‘So which part irked the most?’

‘The brilliant part. You know what we academics are like. We all want to be the most clever, the most inventive, the most highly esteemed. We envy brains, not beauty, although some of the men around here seem easily distracted and find it hard to keep their hands off the beauty.’

‘Is this a problem you’ve encountered?’

She smiled at my blatant attempt to massage her ego. ‘I’ve had my fair share of admirers over the years, but I think the men’s tastes tend towards the younger. And yes, before you ask, Rosie did attract a lot of attention.’

‘Did she seem responsive to it?’

‘Well, she already had a boyfriend, apparently.’

‘Apparently?’

‘Look, let me be frank. She didn’t show that much enthusiasm towards her young man, which is a pity, because I thought he seemed very nice. I always suspected she was infatuated or involved with someone else.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I was a young woman once. I recognised the signs: the sighs when she thought no one was watching. She suddenly started to take more care of how she looked, hair always tidy, clothes a little more trendy, occasional make-up. She’d get evasive if you asked her about what she was doing for dinner or things like that. She was being secretive.’

That confirmed my thoughts about her having a lover other than her hapless boyfriend, and also brought the focus back to the fact that this lover was most likely her killer. Loved to death.

‘Did you have any theories as to who this mystery person might be?’ I asked.

‘I’d initially thought she might be having it off with her professor, but it could be someone else in this department, or the Biochemistry Department, which she had a bit to do with too.’