‘Do you really think she was murdered?’ Ethan asked.

James nodded. ‘That appears to be the case.’

Claire covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

‘It makes no fucking sense,’ Ethan said. ‘I can’t imagine why anyone would want to harm her.’

James wanted to explore why Denise Elliott had accused Libby of being indirectly responsible for Rachel’s death, so he said, ‘I got the impression from something Rachel’s mother just told me that not everyone was happy to see Libby marry Greg. Is that so?’

Ethan started to answer but his mother beat him to it after removing her hands from her face.

‘We were all against it, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Greg Murphy is not right for our Libby. He gives the impression that he’s a kind and caring person, but behind the mask he’s a bully and a control freak. And in that respect, he takes after his father, Michael Murphy, who all but ruined my life.’

James narrowed his eyes at her. ‘How do you mean?’

She took a breath. ‘My late husband, Kyle, used to manage a hotel near Sedbergh. He really enjoyed it until it was sold to Greg’s dad who was in the process of building his little empire. Kyle was kept on but he was treated like a slave and the pressure my husband was put under was relentless. He got depressed and unwell and eventually had a stroke that killed him. As far as I’m concerned, Michael Murphy was to blame. He was an arrogant arse-wipe who acted like a tyrant. Most of the people who worked for him hated his guts.’

Ethan invited James to sit on the side of the bed and said, ‘That’s why Mum is angry as well as grief-stricken, Mr Walker. If Libby had broken up with Greg and called off the wedding when she threatened to then this wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Are you telling me that Libby had had second thoughts about getting married?’ This was quite a surprise for James to process.

Once again, it was Claire who answered. ‘They split up and got back together a couple of times, but three months ago Libby decided she’d had enough and seemed determined to end it once and for all. That came as a huge relief to me and her parents, who feel the same way as I do about Greg. But then his father died suddenly from a brain aneurism and she changed her mind. I’m convinced it was out of pity more than anything else.’

James was reminded of how often tragedies exposed the dark underbelly of relationships, whether it be within families or among friends. From the outside everything seemed fine, while below the surface lives were blighted by brooding resentments, festering hostilities and mutual mistrust.

Rachel Elliott’s untimely death was proving to be a case in point, revealing the fact that the Elliott sisters had serious problems with each other, that Greg Murphy was not well liked by his new in-laws and that Claire Prescott and Libby’s parents hadn’t wanted her to marry him at all. None of this would have been obvious from the wedding photos James had just seen, which showed lots of smiling faces, loving looks and affectionate gestures.