“I don’t know,” Grey said. “ Not exactly. I went up the hill to see how much feed was left. In case there’s another cold spell. Quarter to twelve perhaps. It must have been about midday when I met you.”
“Yes,” Ramsay said. “When was the last time you went to the barn?”
Grey shrugged. “About a week ago,” he said. He turned to his wife. “That would be right, wouldn’t it, Celia? It was about a week ago.”
“I can’t remember,” she said indifferently.
“You’ve not been up there since Charlie went missing?”
“No,” Grey said. “Certainly not since then.”
“Was Charlie Elliot a good friend of yours?”
“Not exactly a friend. I’d met him in the Castle, of course. He bought me a few drinks.”
“Did he know you well enough to ask you a favour?”
“I don’t understand,” Grey said. “What sort of favour?”
“Did he ask you if he could camp out in your barn?”
“Of course not,” Grey said. “I wouldn’t have allowed that. He was wanted for murder.”
“What were you doing on Monday evening?”
“I was in the Castle,” Grey said. “Having a few drinks.”
“Where were you, Mrs. Grey?”
“I was here,” she said.
“Did you hear anything unusual?” he asked. She shook her head.
“If Charlie Elliot had come through your farmyard you would surely have heard,” he said.
“Not necessarily,” she said.
“But what about the dogs? Wouldn’t a stranger coming into the yard have disturbed them?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I don’t know. Perhaps I was busy and didn’t hear them. Or perhaps Charlie got onto the hill through the fields without coming past the house.”
“Oh,” Ramsay said. “He certainly came past the house. I stopped the Land Rover on the way down and there’s a motorcycle track quite clear in the mud.”
She said nothing.
Ramsay turned again to Robert Grey. “Where were you on Saturday night?” he asked. “ On the evening of Mrs. Parry’s death.”
But before Grey could reply, Celia interrupted.
“He wasn’t here,” she said. “His mother lives in Penrith and she’s been ill for a while. He went to the hospital to visit her. You can phone his sister if you like. She’ll confirm it.”
“And where were you, Mrs. Grey?”
“I was here,” she said, then added bitterly, “I’m always here.”
She got up to take scones out of the oven and to shake them onto a wire cooling tray.
“How well did you know Mrs. Parry?” Ramsay asked. The question was directed at them both, but again Celia answered.
“Quite well,” Celia said. “ We were both on the committee of the WI. She was a good woman. I liked her.”
“Everyone seems to have liked her,” Ramsay said, “but she was stabbed to death. Have you any idea why?”
For the first time Celia Grey’s composure seemed shaken. “ No,” she said. “ Of course not. Unless it had anything to do with the development on Tower meadow.”
“Have you never considered any of your land for building, Mr. Grey?”
And this time Grey did answer, stammering in his attempt to get the words out.
“I’d sell nothing to that bastard Henshaw,” he said. “Nothing.” He got to his feet. “ Look, I’m busy. I’ve a lot to do. I’ll be in the shed if you want me.”
When Grey left the room, Celia turned back to the oven. She lifted a fruitcake onto the table and put a skewer into the centre, then replaced it at the bottom of the oven. Ramsay might not have been there.
“I wanted to talk to your son,” he said, “but I expect he’s still at school.”
She looked at him seriously. “ Why do you want to speak to Ian?” she asked. “He’s got nothing to do with this.”
“He’s not in any trouble,” Ramsay said. “He might just have seen something.”
“He’s not at school,” she said. “ He’s upstairs. He’s got the flu.”
“Can I speak to him? It won’t take long. You can be present if you want to.”
She shrugged and disappeared from the room. She came back sometime later followed by a teenage boy. He was pale and seemed genuinely unwell. Ramsay recognised him as one of the boys who had passed him while he was standing at the bus shelter on the first night of the investigation. He sat next to the big, old-fashioned range and huddled into his polo-neck sweater.
“I’ll get on with this washing up,” Celia said, “while you talk to him. You won’t mind that?”
“No,” Ramsay said. “Of course not.”
She moved to the sink with her pile of bowls and spoons, and as she passed him she turned to her son with a look that was half threat and half entreaty. The boy took out a large handkerchief and blew his nose. Ramsay could not tell whether or not he had received whatever message the mother was trying to send.
“It’s about Saturday night,” Ramsay said. “Were you at home?”
The boy glanced over at his mother, but she did not turn to face them. Ramsay thought she was concentrating on not showing a reaction. She lifted a soapy mixing bowl from the sink and placed it upside down on the draining board.
“No,” he said at last. “I went out with a mate.”
“Which mate?”
He gave the name of the boy who lived in the council house Ramsay had visited earlier that day.
“Where did you go?”
Ian shrugged. “Just about the village.”
“Where in the village?”
“We were at Dave’s house for a bit, playing records,” Ian said, “but his mam and dad wanted to watch television, so we went out.”
He began to cough. His eyes were streaming and he spoke with a hoarse croak.
“Where did you go then?” Ramsay asked. “Did you come back here?”
“No,” the boy said quickly. “We didn’t come here.”
“Oh?” Ramsay said. “ Why was that then?”
The boy looked embarrassed. “It was Saturday night,” he said. “I wanted to be out of the house.”
“If you didn’t come home, where did you go?” Ramsay realised he sounded impatient and added: “It really might be important.”
“Just around,” the boy said infuriatingly.
“Perhaps you could be more specific.”
“We met a friend,” Ian said.
“Where did you meet him?”
“In the bus shelter on the green. It was too windy to hang around.”
At last, Ramsay thought. At last.
“Was anyone else around in the village?”
“I don’t know,” Ian said automatically. He sneezed into his handkerchief.
“Look!” his mother cried. “ Can’t you see how ill he is? Is all this necessary?”
“I’m sorry,” Ramsay said. He turned back to the boy.
“Please think. As you say, it was very windy. You would have noticed. Did you see anyone in the square or outside the church?”
“There was the woman,” the boy said.
“Which woman?” It was impossible to tell from Ramsay’s voice how excited he was.
“I don’t know who she was,” Ian said. “I’d never seen her before. She was hanging around the churchyard.”
“What time was that?”
“I don’t know. About nine o’clock.”
“What did she look like?”
“Small,” Ian said. “ Dark-haired. Scruffy. I don’t remember properly.”
The thing was a matter of complete indifference to him, but Ramsay waited, willing him to recall more details.
“She had a bright red jacket,” the boy said at last. “I’m sure she did. Dave made a joke about it.”
Mary Raven, Ramsay thought. It must have been Mary Raven.
“If you saw her again would you recognise her?”
“Probably.”
“What was she doing?”
“Nothing,” Ian said. “Just hanging around. Sometimes she walked over to the gate to the Tower. We thought she must be waiting for someone.”