James shrugged. ‘As the crime scene evidence suggests, it was most likely a crime of passion and murder was never the intended result. A verbal tussle may suddenly have become physical. Libby – or Ethan, for that matter – may have lost control and hit out with whatever they were holding, knocking Rachel backwards onto the post.’

‘It appears from what Rachel said in the message that Ethan had already got physical with her,’ Abbott replied. ‘He must have laid a hand on her either before or after they were seen by the staff member arguing in the garden.’

‘We’ll need to ask him about it. Right, Abbott and I will go to speak with Libby and Ethan again. They’ve both got a lot of explaining to do,’ James said. ‘Libby lives in Burnside and Ethan in Windermere, so we should be back in good time to welcome Carlo Salvi to Kendal.

‘Tony, was there anything else of interest on Rachel’s phone?’

‘Most of the calls she made in recent months are to a number I now know belongs to the boyfriend,’ he said. ‘He called her back but not nearly as often as she called him. They also exchanged messages, mostly about when and where they would meet up and whether she could stay at his flat overnight. It’s worth noting that she expressed her feelings more than he did, often telling him how much she enjoyed being with him and how she wished he didn’t have to go back to Italy. And she ended every message with four or five kisses. The nearest he ever came to showing affection was by telling her he’d had a good time and was looking forward to seeing her again.’

‘That’s probably because he was seeing other women while dating her,’ Abbott said.

James looked down at his notebook and the list he’d drawn up of all the topics he wanted to raise before he started to assign tasks. He reminded the team that he wanted to know more about Mark Slade and Greg Murphy and was told that little progress had been made yesterday because so few people were in, but these enquiries were now in hand.

‘One thing to note is that Libby and Greg were having problems in their relationship some months ago and she was apparently having second thoughts about marrying him. But after his father died, she couldn’t bring herself to do it and it would appear they were able to work through their differences. This was much to the disappointment of her parents and sister who have no time for Greg. I don’t know if any of this had a bearing on what happened at the wedding, but we need to explore all possibilities. And we should also go along to the university and speak to staff there about Salvi. Find out as much as we can about him.’

James finished the briefing by announcing that DCI Tanner would be staging a press conference this afternoon at Carleton Hall.