‘First, allow me to ask you if you’re okay, Mrs Prescott,’ James said. ‘We arrived at Mr and Mrs Elliott’s house shortly after you’d left and they told us about the incident with the press photographer and reporter.’

‘I’m fine,’ Claire responded. ‘I just lost my balance when I hit the kerb. It shook me up a bit, but that was all.’

He then turned to Libby and told her that he had news to pass on about the investigation.

Libby gnawed at her lower lip and gave him a considered look.

‘You had better sit down then,’ she said.

There weren’t enough chairs for everyone so Ethan sat on the arm of the sofa next to his mother.

James had decided to take it slowly and not to rush into announcing that he was about to trigger the execution of a search warrant. He hadn’t expected Libby to be here and so he wanted to seize the opportunity to question all three of them together.

He couldn’t help noticing the nervous looks that passed between them and the sense of anticipation that was almost palpable. It made him all the more convinced that there was something they were holding back. Something they were hiding.

Libby appeared to be the most anxious. Her face was tense, jaw locked, and a muscle under her right eye was twitching.

Ethan, for his part, seemed to be finding it hard to keep his body still and kept fidgeting with his shirt collar.

As for Claire, she sat forward on the sofa, hands resting on her walking stick, her pale, watchful eyes filled with something akin to indignation.

‘The first thing that you need to know is that two of the men we’ve been questioning are no longer suspects,’ James said. ‘It’s been established that neither Carlo Salvi nor Douglas Hannigan were at the hotel when she was killed. Hannigan was never there, and Salvi left after he and Rachel argued in her room.’

‘Do you know what the argument was over?’ Libby asked.

James nodded. ‘Rachel had fallen in love with him and she thought he felt the same so she decided to declare her love for him at the wedding and tell him she wanted to move to Italy with him. She thought it was what he wanted too, but he told her that he didn’t feel the same way and that it was over between them. That was why she was so down and almost certainly why she consumed a significant amount of alcohol.’

All three of them were shocked into silence, but it was Libby’s face that showed the most emotion. She clenched her jaw tight and her eyes filled with tears.

‘You probably don’t need me to tell you that having lost two of our main suspects, we’re now forced to shift the focus of the investigation,’ James said. ‘Other scenarios will be given more consideration.’

He could tell from the way Claire was looking at him that she knew where he was going with this.