One thing she’d learned from Isobel, it was always better to brazen these things out. Even when they’d shared that terrible flat on the northern end of the tube line, the one with the slugs in the bathroom, Isobel had greeted guests with a tea tray complete with sugar bowl and lace doilies, as if they’d been invited to the palace.

Rosalind ignored Posy’s lingerie, and Caro’s make-up bag spilling across the coffee table, and took her own seat opposite the policeman.

‘You wished to speak with me?’ She raised her eyebrows to suggest she couldn’t possibly imagine what about.

‘Yes.’ He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, and she hoped he hadn’t found any more of her friend’s unmentionables to sit on. ‘I know my officers took your statement last night, about finding the body. But it seems to me on second reading that there were some notable omissions I hoped you could clear up for me.’

‘Oh?’

‘Like why you went down to the Gate House in the first place.’ He’d pulled out his notebook to consult his scribbles on the matter, but he didn’t look at them before asking.

‘I told you last night. It was a spur of the moment decision.’

‘Only when I spoke to one of your fellow house guests, Miss Felicity Hill, she suggested it might have been because she told you she’d seen the victim heading to the Gate House on the afternoon of her murder.’ Another long, expectant look from the DCI, punctuated by him tapping his pen against the paper.

If he was expecting her to sound guilty, he’d misjudged this situation rather badly.

‘She did tell us that, yes,’ Rosalind admitted. ‘And since we were concerned about Clementine, we discussed it between the three of us and decided – on the spur of that moment – to go and check if she was still there, and if she needed anything.’

‘You were concerned about her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you concerned she might be dead?’

‘No!’ Rosalind stared at him in horror. ‘If anything, we were concerned that she might have been involved in her boss’s death.’

‘So you went to the Gate House, on the spur of the moment, to confront a woman you suspected of being a murderer.’ Larch shook his head. ‘You understand that doesn’t make this situation any better.’

‘Yes, I see that now,’ Rosalind snapped. ‘Have you had the results of Marcus’s post mortem back yet?’

He looked up from his notes, and met her gaze, like he was searching her eyes for secrets. ‘We have.’

‘Poison? Aconite, right?’

He paused, his pen still where it rested on his notebook. ‘Yes. How did you know that?’ For the first time since they’d met, Larch managed an expression other than weary disappointment. It wasn’t quite surprise, but it was enough to make Rosalind feel a flare of triumph.