Devices & Desires

BOOK FIVE. Tuesday 27 September to Thursday 29 September

Jonathan Reeves waited until he saw Mrs Simpson leave her office for coffee before going into the establishment office where the personnel files were kept. All the personnel records had, he knew, been computerized but the original files were still in existence, guarded by Mrs Simpson as if they were repositories of dangerous and actionable information. She was nearing the end of her service and had never come to terms with computer records. For her the only reality was set down in black and white between the manila folders of an official file. Her assistant, Shirley Coles, was a newly appointed junior, a pretty eighteen-year-old who lived in the village. She had early been instructed in the importance of the Director and the heads of departments but hadn't yet assimilated the more subtle law which permeates any organization and which defines those whose wishes are to be taken seriously whatever their grade and those who can be safely ignored. She was a pleasant child, anxious to please and responsive to friendliness.

Jonathan said: 'I'm almost sure that her birthday is early next month. I know that the personnel records are confidential, but it's only her date of birth. If you could have a look and let me know.'

He knew that he sounded gauche and nervous but that helped; she knew what it was to feel gauche and nervous. He added: 'Only the date of birth. Honestly. And I won't tell anyone how I found out. She did tell me but I've forgotten.'

'I'm not supposed to, Mr Reeves.'

'I know, but there isn't any other way that I can find out. She doesn't live at home so I can't ask her mother. I really would hate her to think I'd forgotten.'

'Couldn't you come back when Mrs Simpson is here? I expect she'd tell you. I'm not supposed to open files when she's away.'

'I could ask her, I know, but I'd rather not. You know how she is. I'm afraid she'd laugh at me. About Caroline. I thought you'd understand. Where is she, Mrs Simpson?'

'Having her coffee break. She always takes twenty minutes. But you'd better stand by the door and let me know if anyone's coming.'

But he stood instead at the side of the cabinet and watched while she went over to the security cupboard with its combination lock and began twirling the dial. He said: 'Can the police see these personnel records if they ask?'

'Oh no, Mr Reeves, that wouldn't be right. No one sees them except Dr Mair and Mrs Simpson. They're confidential. The police did see Miss Robarts's file, though. Dr Mair asked for it first thing on Monday morning, even before the police arrived. It was the first thing he rang for as soon as he got into his office. Mrs Simpson took it in to him personally. But that's different. She's dead. There isn't anything private when you're dead.'

'No,' he said. 'Nothing is private once you're dead.' And he had a sudden picture of himself in that small rented house in Romford, helping his mother clear out his grandfather's things after the old man's heart attack; the greasy clothes, the smell, the larder with its store of baked beans on which he chiefly lived, the uncovered saucers of stale and mouldy food, those shameful magazines which he had discovered at the bottom of a drawer and which, scarlet-faced, his mother had snatched from him. No, there wasn't anything left private once you were dead.

She said, her back to him, 'Awful, isn't it, the murder? You can't sort of realize it. Not someone you actually knew. It's made a lot of extra work for us in Estabs. The police wanted a list of all the staff with their addresses. And everyone's had a form asking where they were on Sunday evening and who they were with. Well, you know. You've had one. We all have.'

The combination lock needed precision. Her first effort had been unsuccessful and now she was carefully turning the dial again. Oh God, he thought, why can't she get on with it? But now, at last, the door swung open. He could glimpse the edge of a small metal box. She took from it a bunch of keys and, returning to the filing cabinet, quickly selected one and inserted it in the lock. The tray slid out at a touch of her fingers. Now she seemed infected with his anxiety. She gave one anxious look at the door and quickly rifled through the suspended files.

'Here it is.'

He had to stop himself from snatching it. She opened it and he saw the familiar buff-coloured form which he had himself completed when he first came to the station, her application for her present job. What he wanted was laid out before him in her careful capitals. Caroline Sophia St John Amphlett, date of birth 14 October 1957, place Aldershot, England, nationality British.

Shirley closed the file and quickly replaced it and slid back the drawer. As she locked it she said: 'There you are then. Fourteenth of October. Quite soon really. It's a good thing you checked. What will you do to celebrate? If the weather stays good you could have a picnic on the boat.'

He said, puzzled: 'What boat? We don't have a boat.'

'Caroline does. She bought Mr Hoskins's old cabin cruiser berthed at Wells-next-the-Sea. I know because he put a card in Mrs Bryson's window at Lydsett and my Uncle Ted thought he might have a look at it as it was going cheap. But when he rang, Mr Hoskins told him it had been sold to Miss Amphlett from Larksoken.'

'When was that?'

'Three weeks ago. Didn't she tell you?'

He thought: One more secret, innocent perhaps, but still strange. She had never shown the slightest interest in boats or the sea. An old cabin cruiser, going cheap. And it was autumn, hardly the best time to buy a boat.

He heard Shirley's voice: 'Sophia's rather a pretty name.

Old-fashioned, but I like it. She doesn't look like a Sophia, though, does she?'

But Jonathan had seen more than her full name and the date of birth. Underneath were the names of her parents. Father, Charles Roderick St John Amphlett, deceased, army officer. Mother, Patricia Caroline Amphlett. He had brought with him a sheet of paper torn from a notebook and quickly wrote down both the date and the names. They were a bonus. He had forgotten that the application form was so detailed. Surely, with this information, a detective agency would be able to trace her mother without too great difficulty.

It was only when the keys had been replaced in the security cupboard that he could breathe freely. Now that he had gained what he wanted it seemed ungracious to hurry away. It was important to be gone before Mrs Simpson returned and Shirley was left to face the inevitable question about what he was doing there and might be forced into a lie. But he lingered a moment while she settled herself at her desk. She began threading paper clips together to make a chain.

She said: 'I feel really awful about this murder, I really do. Do you know, I was actually there on Sunday afternoon, I mean the actual place where she died. We went for a picnic so that Christopher could play on the beach. I mean Mum, Dad, Christopher and me. He's my baby brother, he's only four. We parked the car on the headland only about fifty yards from Miss Robarts's cottage, but of course we didn't see her. We didn't see anybody the whole afternoon, except Mrs Jago in the distance on her bicycle delivering the church magazines.'

Jonathan said: 'Have you told this to the police? I suppose they might be interested. I mean, they'd be interested in hearing that you hadn't actually seen anyone near her cottage.'

'Oh yes, I told them. And they were very interested. Do you know, they asked me whether Christopher had spilled any sand on the path. And he had. Wasn't that funny? I mean, it was funny they should think of it.'

Jonathan said: 'When were you there, then?'

'They asked me that as well. Not very long. Only from about half-past one to about half-past three. We actually ate our picnic in the car. Mum said it wasn't the time of year to sit around on the beach getting cold. Then we went down the path to that little cove and Christopher made a sandcastle near to the sea. He was happy enough but it wasn't warm enough for the rest of us to sit about. Mum more or less had to drag him away yelling. Dad went on to the car and we were lagging a bit behind. Mum said, "I'm not having you carrying that sand into the car, Christopher. You know your dad won't like it." So she made him dp it out. More yells from Christopher, of course. Honestly, that kid can be diabolical sometimes. Funny, isn't it? I mean, us being there on that very same afternoon.'

Jonathan said: 'Why do you think they were so interested in the sand?'

'That's what Dad wanted to know. That detective, the one who was here and interviewed me, said that they might find a footprint and want to eliminate it if it belonged to one of us. Dad reckons they must have found a footprint. A couple of young detectives, very nice they were, came to see Dad and Mum yesterday evening. They asked Dad and Mum what shoes they had been wearing and they actually asked if they could take them away. Well, they wouldn't do that, would they, if they hadn't found something?'

Jonathan said: 'It must have been a terrible worry to your dad and mum.'

'Oh no, it didn't bother them. After all, we weren't there when she died, were we? After we left the headland we drove to have tea with Gran at Hunstanton. We didn't leave until half-past nine. Far too late for Christopher, Mum said. He slept in the car all the way home, mind you. But it was funny though, wasn't it? Being there on

the very day. If she'd been killed a few hours earlier we'd actually have seen the body. I don't think we'll go back to that part of the beach again. I wouldn't go there after dark for a thousand pounds. I'd be frightened I might see her ghost. Funny about the sand, though, isn't it? I mean, if they do find a footprint and it helps them to catch the murderer it will all be because of Christopher wanting to play on the beach and Mum making him spill out the sand. I mean, it was such a little thing. Mum said it reminded her of Vicar's sermon last Sunday when he preached about how even our smallest actions can have immense consequences. I didn't remember it. I mean, I like singing in the choir, but Mr Smollett's sermons are dead boring.'

So small a thing, a footprint in soft sand. And if that footprint was made in the sand spilled by Christopher from his bucket, then it was made by someone who had used that path after half-past three on Sunday afternoon.

He said: 'How many people here know about this? Have you told anyone except the police?'

'No one but you. They said that we weren't to talk and I haven't, not until now. I know Mrs Simpson was curious why I asked to see Chief Inspector Rickards. She kept saying that she couldn't see what I could tell them and that I wasn't to waste police time trying to make myself important. I suppose she was worried thinking I'd tell them about the row she and Miss Robarts had when Dr Gledhill’s personal file was missing and Dr Mair had it all the time. But you won't tell, will you? Not even Miss Amphlett?'

'No,' he promised. 'I won't tell. Not even her.'

There was a surprising number of detective agencies in the yellow pages and apparently very little to choose between them. He chose one of the largest and wrote down the London telephone number. It wouldn't do to telephone from the power station and he didn't want to wait until he got home where there would be even less privacy. He was anxious, too, to ring as soon as possible. His plan was to lunch at a local pub and find a public call box.

The morning seemed interminable but at twelve o'clock he said that he was taking an early lunch hour and left, checking first that he had sufficient small coins. The nearest kiosk was, he knew, in the village close to the general store. It was a public position but he told himself that there was no need for particular secrecy.

His call was quickly answered by a woman. He had prepared what he would say and she seemed to find nothing strange in the request. But it became apparent that it wouldn't be as easy as he had hoped. Yes, she said, the agency could certainly hope to trace an individual from the information provided but there was no fixed charge. Everything depended on the difficulty and how long it took. Until his request had been formally received it was impossible even to give an estimate. The cost might be as little as £200 or as much as £400. She suggested that he should write in immediately, setting out all the information in his possession and stating clearly what he required. The letter should be accompanied by a down payment of £100. They would certainly deal with it as a matter of urgency, but until the request was received they could give no assurance of how long it would take. He thanked her, said that he would write, and put down the receiver, glad that he hadn't given her his name. Somehow he had imagined that they would take the information down over the telephone, tell him what the cost would be, promise him a quick result. It was all too formal, too expensive, too slow. He wondered whether to try another agency, then told himself that in this highly competitive field they were unlikely to give him any more encouraging news.

By the time he had got back to the power station and parked his car he had almost persuaded himself not to proceed. And then it occurred to him that he might make his own inquiries. The name was unusual enough; there might be an Amphlett in the London telephone directory and if not in London it might be worth trying some of the larger cities. And her father had been a soldier. Perhaps there was an army directory – wasn't it called the Army List? – which he could consult. It would be worth doing a little research before committing himself to expenditure he might not be able to meet, and the thought of writing to a detective agency, of actually putting his request down on paper, discouraged him. He began to feel like a conspirator, an unfamiliar role which both excited and ministered to some part of his nature which he hadn't previously known existed. He would work alone and if he were unsuccessful it would be time to think again.

And the first step was remarkably straightforward, so simple that he blushed at his folly at not having thought of it earlier. Back in the library he consulted the London telephone directory. There was a P. C. Amphlett with an address in Pont Street, SW1. He stared at it for a moment then with trembling fingers took out his notebook and jotted down the telephone number. The initials were those of Caroline's mother, but the entry bore no prefix. The subscriber could easily be a man. It could be a coincidence. And the name Pont Street meant nothing to him although he didn't think that SW1 could be a poor area of London. But would she have told him a lie which could be detected merely by consulting the telephone directory? Only if she were so confident of her dominance, of his enslavement to her, so certain of his inadequacy and stupidity that she hadn't needed to care. She had wanted that alibi and he had given it. And if this were a lie, if he visited Pont Street and discovered that her mother wasn't living in poverty, what else that she had told him had been true? When exactly had she been on the headland and for what purpose? But these were suspicions which he knew he could not seriously entertain. The idea that Caroline had killed Hilary Robarts was ridiculous. But why hadn't she been willing to tell the police the truth?

But he knew now what his next move would be. On the way home he would telephone the Pont Street number and ask for Caroline. That at least should prove whether or not it was her mother's address. And if it was then he would take a day's leave or wait until Saturday, make an excuse to have a day in London and check for himself.

The afternoon dragged on endlessly and it was difficult to keep his mind on his work. He was worried, too, in case Caroline should appear, should suggest that he go home with her. But she seemed to be avoiding him and he was grateful. He left ten minutes early, making the excuse of a headache, and within twenty minutes was back at the telephone kiosk in Lydsett. The number rang for almost half a minute and he had nearly given up hope when it was answered. A woman's voice slowly and distinctly spoke the number. He had decided to assume a Scottish accent. He knew himself to be quite a good mimic and his maternal grandmother had been a Scot. There would be no difficulty in making it convincing. He said: 'Is Miss Caroline Amphlett at home, please?'

There was a long silence, then the woman said repressively: 'Who is that speaking?'

'My name is John McLean. We're old friends.'

'Indeed, Mr McLean. Then how strange that I don't know you and that you, apparently, don't know that Miss Amphlett no longer lives here.'

Then could you give me her address, please?'

Again there was a silence. Then the voice said: 'I hardly think I would care to do that, Mr McLean. But if you wish to leave a message I will see that it reaches her.'

He asked: 'Is that her mother speaking?'

The voice laughed. It was not an agreeable laugh. Then she said: 'No, I'm not her mother. This is Miss Beasley, the housekeeper, speaking. But did you really need to ask?'

And then it occurred to him that there could be two Caroline Amphletts, two mothers with the same initials. The chance was surely remote, but it would be as well to make sure. He said: 'Does Caroline still work at Larksoken Power Station?'

And this time there could be no mistake. Her voice was harsh with dislike as she answered. 'If you know that, Mr McLean, why bother to ring me.'

And the telephone receiver was firmly replaced.

It was after 10.30 on the Tuesday night when Rickards came for the second time to Larksoken Mill. He had telephoned his intention shortly after six o'clock and had made it clear that the visit, although late, was official; there were facts he wanted to check and a question he needed to ask. Earlier in the day Dalgliesh had called in at the incident room at Hoveton and made a statement describing the finding of the body. Rickards hadn't been there, but Oliphant, obviously on his way out, had stayed to receive him and had briefly filled him in on the state of the investigation, not unwillingly but with a certain formality which suggested that he was under instructions. And Rickards himself, as he dragged off his jacket and seated himself in the same high-backed chair to the right of the fire, seemed a little chastened. He was wearing a dark blue, pin-striped suit which, for all its over-careful tailoring, had the slightly seedy and rejected air of a suit relegated to second-best. But it still looked odd and inappropriately citified on his gangling limbs, particularly here on the headland, giving him the air of a man dressed for an informal wedding or a job interview from which he had little hope of success. The thinly veiled antagonism, the bitterness of failure after the death of the Whistler, and even the restless energy of Sunday night had left him. Dalgliesh wondered whether he had spoken to the Chief Constable and received advice. If so, he could guess what it had been. It was much the same as he himself would have given.

'It's irritating that he's on your patch, but he's one of the Met's senior detectives, the Commissioner's blue-eyed boy. And he knows these people. He was at the Mair dinner party. He found the body. He's got useful information. All right, he's a professional, he's not going to withhold it, but you'll get it more easily and make life more agreeable for both of you if you stop treating him like a rival, or worse, a suspect.'

Handing Rickards his whisky, Dalgliesh inquired after his wife.

'She's fine, fine.' But there was something forced in his tone.

Dalgliesh said: 'I suppose now the Whistler's dead, she'll be coming home.'

'You'd think so, wouldn't you? I'd like it, she'd like it, but there's the little problem of Sue's ma. She doesn't want her ewe-lamb mixed up with any unpleasantness, particularly murder, and particularly just now.'

Dalgliesh said: 'It's difficult to isolate yourself from unpleasantness, even murder, if you marry a police officer.'

'She never intended Sue to marry a police officer.'

Dalgliesh was surprised at the bitterness in his voice. Again, he was uncomfortably aware that he was being asked for some kind of assurance which he, of all men, was least competent to give. While he was searching for the anodyne phrase he glanced again at Rickards's face, at the look of weariness, almost of defeat, at the lines which the fitful light of the wood fire made even more cavernous, and took refuge in practicality.

He asked: 'Have you eaten?'

'Oh, I'll get myself something from the fridge when I get back.'

'There's the remains of a cassoulet, if you'd like it. It won't take a moment to heat up.' 'Wouldn't say no, Mr Dalgliesh.'

He ate the cassoulet from a tray on his lap, voraciously, as if it was his first meal for days, and afterwards mopped up the sauce with a crust of bread. Only once did he look up from his plate to ask: 'Did you cook this, Mr Dalgliesh?'

'If you live alone you have to learn at least simple cooking if you're not prepared to be always dependent on someone else for one of the essentials of life.'

'And that wouldn't suit you, would it? Dependent on someone else for an essential of life?'

But he spoke without bitterness and carried the tray and the empty plate back into the kitchen with a smile. A second later Dalgliesh heard the splash of running water. Rickards was washing up his plate.

He must have been hungrier than he had realized. Dalgliesh knew how mistakenly easy it was, when working a sixteen-hour day, to suppose that one could function effectively on a diet of coffee and snatched sandwiches. Returning from the kitchen, Rickards leaned back in his chair with a small grunt of contentment. The colour had returned to his face and when he spoke his voice was strong again.

'Her dad was Peter Robarts. Remember him?'

'No, should I?'

'No reason. Nor did I, but I've had time to look him up. He made a packet after the war in which, incidentally, he served with some distinction. One of those chaps with an eye for the main chance, which in his case was plastics. It must have been quite a time for the wide boys, the 1950s and 60s. She was his only child. He made his fortune quickly and he lost it as fast. The usual reasons; extravagance, ostentatious generosity, women, throwing his money around as if he were printing it, thinking his luck would hold, whatever the odds. He was lucky not to end up inside. The fraud squad had put together a nice little case against him and were within days of making an arrest when he had his coronary. Slumped forward into his lunch plate at Simpson's as dead as the duck he was eating. It must have been difficult for her; daddy's little girl one day, nothing too good, and then near-disgrace, death, poverty.'

Dalgliesh said: 'Relative poverty, but that, of course, is what poverty is. You've been busy.'

'Some, but not much, we got from Mair, some we had to grub around for. The City of London police have been helpful. I've been speaking to Wood Street. I used to tell myself that nothing about the victim was irrelevant but I'm beginning to wonder if much of this grubbing about isn't a waste of time.'

Dalgliesh said: 'It's the only safe way to work. The victim dies because she is uniquely herself.'

'"And once you comprehend the life, you comprehend the death." Old Blanco White – remember him? – used to drum that into us when I was a young DC. And what do you get in the end? A jumble of facts like an upturned waste-paper basket. They don't really add up to a person. And with this victim the pickings are small. She travelled light. There was little worth finding in that cottage, no diary, no letters except one to her solicitor making an appointment for next weekend telling him she expected to be married. We've seen him, of course. He doesn't know the name of the man and nor, apparently, does anyone else, including Mair. We found no other papers of importance except a copy of her will. And there's nothing exciting about that. She left everything she had to Alex Mair in two lines of bald lawyer's prose. But I can't see Mair killing her for twelve thousand pounds on NatWest's special reserve account and a practically derelict cottage with a sitting tenant. Apart from the will and that one letter, only the usual bank statements, receipted bills, the place obsessively tidy. You could imagine she knew she was going to die and had tidied away her life. No sign of a recent search, incidentally. If there was something in the cottage the murderer wanted, and he smashed that window to get it, he covered his tracks pretty effectively.'

Dalgliesh said: 'If he did have to smash the window to get in then he probably wasn't Dr Mair. Mair knew that the key was in the locket. He could have taken it, used it and put it back. There would be an additional risk of leaving evidence at the scene, and some murderers dislike returning to the body. Others, of course, feel a compulsion to do so. But if Mair did take the key, he'd have had to put it back whatever the risk. An empty locket would have pointed directly to him.'

Rickards said: 'Cyril Alexander Mair, but he's dropped the Cyril. Probably thinks Sir Alexander Mair will sound better than Sir Cyril. What's wrong with Cyril? My grandfather was called Cyril. I've got a prejudice against people who don't use their proper names. She was his mistress, incidentally.'

'Did he tell you?'

'More or less had to, didn't he? They were very discreet but one or two of the senior staff at the station must have known, known or suspected it, anyway. He's too intelligent to keep back information he knows we're bound to discover sooner or later. His story is that the affair was over, a natural end by common consent. He expects to move to London; she wanted to stay here. Well, she more or less had to unless she gave up her job, and she was a career woman, the job was important. His story is that what they felt for each other wasn't robust enough to be sustained by occasional weekend meetings – his words not mine. You'd think that the whole affair was a matter of convenience. While he was here he needed a woman, she needed a man. The goods have to be handy. No point if you're a hundred miles apart. Rather like buying meat. He's moving to London, she decided to stay. Find another butcher.'

Dalgliesh remembered that Rickards had always been slightly censorious about sex. He could hardly have been a detective for twenty years without encountering adultery and fornication in their various guises, apart from the more bizarre and horrifying manifestations of human sexuality beside which adultery and fornication were comfortingly normal. But this didn't mean that he liked them. He had taken his oath as a police constable and kept it. He had made his marriage vows in church and no doubt intended to keep them. And in a job where irregular hours, drink, macho camaraderie and the propinquity of women police officers made marriages vulnerable his was known to be solid. He was too experienced and basically too fair to allow himself to be prejudiced, but in one respect at least Mair was unlucky in the detective assigned to the case.

Rickards said: 'Her secretary, Katie Flack, had just given notice. Found her too demanding, apparently. There was a recent row over the girl's taking more than her allotted lunch hour. And one of her staff, Brian Taylor, admits that he found her impossible to work for and had asked for a transfer. Admirably frank about it all. He can afford to be. He was at a friend's stag party at the Maid's Head in Norwich with at least ten witnesses from eight o'clock onwards. And the girl hasn't anything to worry about, either. She spent the evening watching TV with her family.'

Dalgliesh asked: 'Just the family?'

'No. Luckily for her the neighbours called in just before nine to discuss the dresses for their daughter's wedding. She's to be a bridesmaid. Lemon dresses with bouquets of small white and yellow chrysanthemums. Very tasteful. We got a full description. I suppose she thought it added to the verisimilitude of the alibi. Anyway, they were neither of them serious suspects. These days if you don't like your boss you pack in the job. Both of them were shocked, of course, and slightly defensive. They probably felt she'd got herself killed on purpose to put them in the wrong. Neither of them pretended that they had liked her. But there was something stronger than dislike about this killing. And this may surprise you, Mr Dalgliesh. Robarts wasn't particularly unpopular with the senior staff. They respect efficiency and she was efficient. Besides, her responsibilities didn't directly impinge on theirs. It was her job to see that the station was efficiently administered so that the scientific and technical staff could do their job most effectively. Apparently that's what she did. They answered my questions without fuss but they weren't particularly forthcoming. There's a kind of camaraderie about the place. I suppose if you feel yourself constantly under criticism or attack it makes for a certain wariness in dealing with outsiders. Only one of them said he actually disliked her, Miles Lessingham. But he has produced an alibi of a kind. He claims to have been on his boat at the time of death. And he made no secret of his feelings. He didn't want to eat with her or drink with her or spend his spare time with her or go to bed with her. But, as he pointed out, he feels that about a number of people and hasn't found any impulse to murder them.' He paused for a moment, then said, 'Dr Mair showed you round the power station on Friday morning, didn't he?'

Dalgliesh asked: 'Did he tell you that?'

'Dr Mair didn't tell me anything he didn't actually have to tell me. No, it came out when we were talking to one of the junior staff, a local girl who works in the establishment department. Chatty little thing. I got a lot of useful stuff out of her one way or another. I was wondering if anything happened on your visit which could be relevant.'

Dalgliesh resisted the temptation to reply that if there had been he would have said so before now. He replied: 'It was an interesting visit and the place rather impressive. Dr Mair attempted to explain to me the difference between the thermal reactor and the new pressurized water reactor. Most of the talk was technical except when he spoke briefly about poetry. Miles Lessingham showed me the high fuelling machine from which Toby Gledhill plunged to his death. It did strike me that Gledhill's suicide could be relevant but I don't see how. It was obviously distressing to Lessingham, and not only because he witnessed it. There was a rather cryptic exchange at the Mairs' dinner party between him and Hilary Robarts.'

Rickards crouched forward, his huge hand cradling the whisky glass. Without looking up, he said: 'The Mair dinner party. I reckon that cosy little gathering – if it was cosy – is at the nub of this case. And there's something I wanted to ask you. That's really why I'm here. That child, Theresa Blaney, exactly how much of the conversation about the latest Whistler victim did she overhear?'

It was the question Dalgliesh had been expecting. What surprised him was how long it had taken Rickards to ask it.

He said carefully: 'Some of it, undoubtedly. You know that, I've told you already. I couldn't say how long she'd been standing behind the dining-room door before I noticed her or how much of the conversation she actually heard.'

'Can you remember what stage in his account Lessingham had reached at the time you saw Theresa?'

'I can't be certain. I think he was describing the body, exactly what he saw when he returned with his torch.'

'So she could have heard about the cut on the forehead and the pubic hair.'

'But would she have told her father about the hair? She had a devotedly religious mother, an RC. I don't really know the child but I imagine that she's unusually modest. Would a gently nurtured, modest girl tell that to any man, even to her father?'

'Gently nurtured? Modest? You're sixty years out of date. Spend half an hour in any secondary-school playground and you'll hear things that'll curl your hair. Today's kids will say anything to anyone.'

'Not that child.'

'All right, but she could have told her dad about the L-shaped cut and he could have guessed about the hair. Damn it, everyone knew that the Whistler's murders must have had a sexual connotation. He didn't rape them, but that wasn't how he got his kicks. You don't need to be Krafft – what's his name?'

'Krafft-Ebing.'

'Sounds like a cheese. You don't need to be Krafft-Ebing, you don't even need to be sexually sophisticated, to guess what kind of hair the Whistler helped himself to.'

Dalgliesh said: 'But this is important, isn't it, if you're casting Blaney as chief suspect? Would he, or anyone else, kill that way if he wasn't certain about the Whistler's method? He could only hope to pin it on the Whistler by getting all the details right. If you can't prove that Theresa told her father both about the hair and the L-shaped cut your case is considerably weakened. I would doubt whether you had one. Besides, I thought that Oliphant said that Blaney had an alibi both from Miss Mair, who said he was drunk and at home by 9.45, and from his daughter. Wasn't her story that she went to bed at 8.15 and came down just before nine o'clock to get herself a drink of water?'

'That's what she said, Mr Dalgliesh. But I'll tell you this: that child would confirm any story that her dad chose to tell. And the timing is suspiciously accurate. Robarts dies at 9.20 or as near as damn it. Theresa Blaney goes to bed at 8.15 and conveniently needs a drink of water forty- five minutes later. I wish you could have seen her, and seen that cottage. But of course you have. Two WPCs from the juvenile bureau were with me and they treated her as tenderly as a babe in arms. Not that she needed it. We all sat round the fire in a cosy little circle and she held the kid in her lap. Ever tried questioning a child to discover if her dad's a murderer while she's sitting there gazing at you with those huge reproachful eyes and nursing a baby? I suggested that she hand the kid over to one of the WPCs but as soon as she tried to take him he immediately started up a howling. Wouldn't let his dad take him either. You'd think that Theresa and he had arranged it between them. And Ryan Blaney was there too, of course, throughout the interview. You can't question a child without the parent being present if the parent wants to be. My God, when I arrest someone for this murder, and I shall, Mr Dalgliesh, this time I shall, I hope it doesn't have to be Ryan Blaney. Those kids have lost enough already. But he's got the strongest motive of all, and he hated Robarts. I don't think he could conceal that hatred if he tried, and he didn't even attempt to try. And it's not only that she was trying to force him out of Scudder's Cottage. It goes deeper than that. I don't know what's at the root of it. Something to do with his wife, maybe. But I'll find out. He left the kids in the cottage and walked out with us to the cars. The last thing he said was: "She was an evil bitch and I'm glad she's dead. But I didn't kill her, and you can't prove I did."

'And I know the objections. Jago says he telephoned at 7.30 to let him know the Whistler was dead. He spoke to Theresa and the kid says she told her dad. No reason why she shouldn't tell him. I think we take it that she did. He wouldn't have left the kids alone in that cottage with the Whistler alive and on the prowl. No responsible father would, and it's generally admitted he's a responsible father. We've got the local authority's word for that, by the way. A fortnight ago they sent a social worker just to check that everything was all right. And I'll tell you who instigated that, Mr Dalgliesh. Now, this is interesting. It was Robarts.'

'Did she make any specific allegations?'

'None. Her story was that she had to visit from time to time to discuss repairs and so on, and that she was concerned at the weight of responsibility he was carrying and thought he could do with some help. Talked about seeing Theresa lugging heavy shopping home with the twins tagging along, sometimes when Theresa should have been at school. Phoned the local authority to send a social worker along. The social worker satisfied herself, apparently, that things were going as well as could be expected. The twins are already attending a playgroup and she offered additional services including a home help, but she didn't find Blaney either welcoming or co-operative. Don't know that I blame him. I wouldn't want the welfare on my back.'

'Does Blaney know that Hilary Robarts instigated the visit?'

The local authority didn't tell him; it isn't their policy. And I don't see how he could have found out. But if he did find out, it considerably strengthens his motive, doesn't it? That visit could have been the last straw.'

Dalgliesh said: 'But would he have killed in that way? Logically, the knowledge that the Whistler was dead negatives the method.'

'Not necessarily, Mr Dalgliesh. Suppose it's a double-bluff. Suppose he's saying in effect, "Look, I can prove I knew the Whistler was dead. Whoever killed Hilary Robarts didn't know. So why aren't you looking for someone who hadn't been told that the Whistler's body had been found?" And by God, Mr Dalgliesh, there's another possibility. Suppose he knew that the Whistler was dead but thought that it was very recent. I asked Theresa precisely what George Jago had said to her. She remembered accurately, anyway Jago confirmed it. Apparently he said, "Tell your dad the Whistler is dead. Killed himself. Just now, over at Easthaven." But no mention of the hotel, nor of when the Whistler booked in. Jago didn't know any of that. The message he'd got from his mate at the Crown and Anchor was pretty garbled. So Blaney could have assumed that the body was found in open country just five miles down the coast. He can kill with impunity. Everyone, including the police, will assume that the Whistler has claimed his last victim then done away with himself. My God, Mr Dalgliesh, that's neat.'

Dalgliesh privately thought that it was more neat than convincing. He said: 'So you're assuming that the smashed portrait isn't directly connected with the murder. I can't see Blaney destroying his own work.'

'Why not? From what I saw of it, it wasn't anything special.'

'I think it was to him.'

'The portrait is a puzzle, I'll grant you that. And that's not the only difficulty. Someone had a drink with Robarts before she took that last swim, someone she let into the cottage, someone she knew. There were those two glasses on the draining board and, in my book, that means two people were drinking. She wouldn't have invited Blaney to Thyme Cottage and if he turned up I doubt if she would have let him in, drunk or sober.'

Dalgliesh said: 'But if you believe Miss Mair, your case against Blaney collapses anyway. She claims to have seen him at Scudder's Cottage at 9.45, or shortly afterwards, and he was then half drunk. All right, he could have feigned his drunkenness; that wouldn't present much difficulty. What he couldn't do was to kill Hilary Robarts at about 9.20 and get home by 9.45, not without the use of a car or van which he didn't have.'

Rickards said: 'Or a bicycle.'

'It would need fast pedalling. We know that she died after her swim, not before. Her hair was still damp at the roots when I found her. So you're probably safe enough in putting the time of death at between 9.15 and 9.30. And he couldn't have taken the bicycle with him and ridden back along the shore. The tide was high; he'd have been riding over the shingle which would be more difficult than the road. There's only one part of the shore where you get a stretch of sand at high tide and that's the small cove where Hilary Robarts swam. And if he had been on the road Miss Mair must have seen him. She's given him an alibi which I don't think you'll be able to break.'

Rickards said: 'But he hasn't given her one, has he? Her story is that she was alone in Martyr's Cottage until she left just after 9.30 to collect the portrait. She and that housekeeper at the Old Rectory, Mrs Dennison, are the only ones who were at the Mairs' dinner party who made no attempt to produce an alibi. And she has a motive. Hilary Robarts was her brother's mistress. I know he tells us it was over, but we've only his word for that. Suppose they'd planned to marry when he goes to London. She's devoted her life to her brother. Unmarried. No other outlet for her emotions. Why give way to another woman just when Mair is about to achieve his ambition?'

Dalgliesh thought that this was an altogether too facile explanation of a relationship which, even on his brief acquaintance, had seemed more complicated. He said: 'She's a successful professional writer. I imagine that success provides its own form of emotional fulfilment, assuming she needs it. She seemed to me very much her own woman.'

'I thought she wrote cookery books. Is that what you call being a successful professional writer?'

'Alice Mair's books are highly regarded and extremely lucrative. We share the same publisher. If he had to make a choice between us, he'd probably prefer to lose me.'

'So you think the marriage might almost be a relief, release her from responsibilities? Let another woman cook and care for him for a change?'

'Why should he need any woman to care for him? It's dangerous to theorize about people and their emotions, but I doubt whether she feels that kind of domestic, quasi-maternal responsibility or whether he either needs or wants it.'

'How do you see it then, the relationship? They live together, after all, most of the time anyway. She's fond of him, that seems to be generally accepted.'

'They'd hardly live together if they weren't, if you can call it living together. She's away a great deal, I understand, researching her books, and he has a London flat. How can someone who's only met them together across the table at a dinner party get to the heart of their relationship? I should have thought that there was loyalty, trust, mutual respect. Ask them.'

'But not jealousy, of him or his mistress?'

'If there is, she's clever at concealing it.'

'All right, Mr Dalgliesh, take another scenario. Suppose he was tired of Robarts, suppose she's pressing him to marry her, wants to quit the job, move to London with him. Suppose she's making herself a nuisance. Wouldn't Alice Mair feel like doing something about that?'

'Like devising and carrying out a singularly ingenious murder to relieve her brother of a temporary embarrassment? Isn't that carrying sisterly devotion to unreasonable lengths?'

'Ah, but they aren't temporary embarrassments, are they, these determined women? Think. How many men do you know who've been forced into marriages they didn't really want because the woman's will was stronger than theirs? Or because they couldn't stand all the fuss, the tears, recriminations, the emotional blackmail?'

Dalgliesh said: 'She could hardly blackmail him with the relationship itself. Neither was married; they weren't deceiving anyone; they weren't causing public scandal. And I can't see anyone, man or woman, coercing Alex Mair into something he didn't want to do. I know it's dangerous to make facile judgements, although that's what we've been doing for the last five minutes, but he seems to me a man who lives his life on his own terms and probably always has.'

'Which might make him vicious if someone tried to stop him.'

'So now you're casting him as murderer?'

'I'm casting him as a strong suspect.'

Dalgliesh asked: 'What about that couple at the caravan? Is there any evidence that they knew about the Whistler's methods?'

'None that we could discover, but how certain can you be? The man, Neil Pascoe, gets about in that van of his, drinks in local pubs. He could have heard some talk. Not every policeman on the case has necessarily been discreet. We've kept the details out of the papers but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been talk. He's got an alibi of sorts. He took the van just south of Norwich to talk to a chap there who'd written to him expressing interest in PANUP, that anti-nuclear organization of his. Had some hopes, apparently, of getting a group started there. I sent a couple of DCs to see the chap. He says they were together until just after 8.20 when Pascoe started for home – said he was starting for home, anyway. The girl he lives with, Amy Camm, says he got back to the caravan by nine and they were together for the rest of the evening. My guess is that he got back a bit later. In that van he must have been pushing it a bit to get from beyond Norwich to Larksoken in forty minutes. And he's got a motive, one of the strongest. If Hilary Robarts had gone ahead with her libel action it could have ruined him. And it's in Camm's interests to support the alibi. She's got herself very cosily fixed up with the kid in that caravan. I'll tell you something else, Mr Dalgliesh, they had a dog once. The lead is still hanging inside the caravan.'

'But if one or both of them used it to strangle Robarts, would it be?'

'People might have seen it. They might have thought it would have been more suspicious to destroy or hide it than to leave it there. We took it away, of course, but it was little more than a formality. Robarts's skin was unbroken. There'll be no physical traces. And if we do manage to get prints, they'll be hers and his. We shall go on checking the alibis, obviously. Every blasted employee at that station, and there are over five hundred of them. You'd never believe that, would you? You go in the place and hardly set sight on a soul. They seem to move through the countryside as invisibly as the energy they're generating. Most of them live at Cromer or Norwich. They want to be near schools and shops, presumably. Only a handful choose to live near the station. Most of the Sunday day shift were home well before ten and virtuously watching the telly or out with their friends. We shall check on them whether or not they had anything to do with Robarts at work. But it's only a formality. I know where to look for my suspects, the guests at that dinner party. Due to Lessingham's inability to keep his mouth shut they were they were told two crucial facts; that the hair stuffed into her mouth was pubic hair and the mark on the forehead was an L. So that narrows the field very conveniently. Alex Mair, Alice Mair, Margaret Dennison, Lessingham himself, and, assuming that Theresa Blaney reported the conversation to her father, you can add Blaney. All right, I may not be able to break his alibi, his or Mair's, but I shall have a damn good try.'

Ten minutes later Rickards got to his feet and said it was time to get home. Dalgliesh walked with him to his car. The cloud level was low, the earth and sky subsumed in the same obliterating darkness in which the cold glitter of the power station seemed to have moved closer, and there lay over the sea a pale blue luminosity, like the faint semblance of a newly discovered Milky Way. Even to feel the ground strike hard beneath their feet was disorientating in this blackness and for a few seconds both men hesitated as if the ten yards to the car, gleaming like some floating spacecraft in the light spilling from the open door, was an odyssey over dangerous and insubstantial ground. Above them the sails of the mill gleamed white and silent, potent with latent power. For a moment Dalgliesh had the illusion that they were about to begin slowly turning.

Rickards said: 'Everything on this headland is contrast. After I left Pascoe's caravan this morning I stood on those low sandy cliffs and looked south. There was nothing but an old fishing smack, a coiled rope, an upturned box, that awful sea. It must have looked like that for near on a thousand years. And then I faced north and saw that bloody great power station. There it is, glittering away. And I'm seeing it under the shadow of the windmill. Does it work, by the way? The mill, I mean.'

Dalgliesh said: 'I'm told so. The sails turn but it doesn't grind. The original millstones are in the lower chamber. Occasionally I have a wish to see the sails slowly turning, but I resist. I'm not sure, once started, whether I could stop them. It would be irritating to hear them creaking away all night.'

They had reached the car but Rickards, pausing with his hand on the door, seemed reluctant to get in. He said: 'We've moved a long way, haven't we, between this mill and the power station? What is it? Four miles of headland and three hundred years of progress. And then I think of those two bodies in the morgue and wonder if we've progressed at all. Dad would have talked about original sin. He was a lay preacher, was Dad. He had it all worked out.'

So had mine, come to that, thought Dalgliesh. He said: 'Lucky Dad.' There was a moment's silence broken by the sound of the telephone, its insistent peal clearly heard through the open door. Dalgliesh said: 'You'd better wait a moment. It could be for you.'

It was. Oliphant's voice asked if Chief Inspector Rickards was there. He wasn't at his home and Dalgliesh's number was one of those which he'd left.

The call was brief. Less than a minute later Rickards joined him at the open door. The slight melancholy of the last few minutes had fallen away and his step was buoyant.

'It could have waited until tomorrow but Oliphant wanted me to know. This could be the breakthrough we've needed. There's been a call from the lab. They must have been working on it non-stop. Oliphant told you, I imagine, that we found a footprint.'

'He did mention it. On the right-hand side of the path in soft sand. He didn't give any details.'

And Dalgliesh, punctilious in not discussing a case with a junior officer in the absence of Rickards, hadn't asked.

'We've just got confirmation. It's the sole of a Bumble trainer, the right foot. Size ten. The pattern on the sole is unique, apparently, and they have a yellow bee on each heel. You must have seen them.' Then, when Dalgliesh didn't reply, he said: 'For God's sake, Mr Dalgliesh, don't tell me that you own a pair. That's a complication I can do without.'

'No, I don't own them. Bumbles are too fashionable for me. But I've seen a pair recently and here on the headland.'

'On whose feet?'

'They weren't on any feet.' He thought for a moment, then said: 'I remember now. Last Wednesday morning, the day after I arrived, I took some of my aunt's clothes, including two pairs of her shoes, to the Old Rectory for the church jumble. They keep a couple of tea chests in an old scullery there where people can leave things they don't want. The back door was open as it usually is in daylight so I didn't bother to knock. There was a pair of Bumbles among the other shoes. Or, more accurately, I saw the heel of one shoe. I imagine the other was there but I didn't see it.'

'On top of the chest?'

'No, about a third down. I think they were in a transparent plastic bag. As I say, I didn't see the whole pair but I did glimpse one heel with the unmistakable yellow bee. It's possible that they were Toby Gledhill’s. Lessingham mentioned that he was wearing Bumbles when he killed himself.'

'And you left the trainers there. You see the importance of what you're saying, Mr Dalgliesh?'

'Yes, I see the importance of what I'm saying and yes, I left the shoe there. I was donating jumble, not stealing it.'

Rickards said: 'If there was a pair, and common sense suggests that there was, anyone could have taken them. And if they're no longer in the chest, it looks as though somebody did.' He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch and said: 'Eleven forty-five. What time do you suppose Mrs Dennison goes to bed?'

Dalgliesh said firmly: 'Earlier than this, I imagine. And she'd hardly go to bed without bolting the back door. So if someone did take them and they're still missing, they can't be returned tonight.'

They had reached the car. Rickards, with his hand on the door, didn't reply but gazed out over the headland as if in thought. His excitement, carefully controlled and unspoken, was as palpable as if he had banged his fists against the car bonnet. Then he unlocked the door and slipped inside. The headlights cut into the darkness like searchlights.

As he wound down the window to say a final goodnight, Dalgliesh said: 'There's something I ought perhaps to mention about Meg Dennison. I don't know whether you remember, but she was the teacher at the centre of that race row in inner London. I imagine that she's had about as much interrogation as she can take. That means the interview might not be easy for you.'

He had thought carefully before he spoke, knowing that it might be a mistake. It was a mistake. The warning, however carefully phrased, had sparked off that latent antagonism of which he was uneasily aware in all his dealings with Rickards.

Rickards said: 'What you mean, Mr Dalgliesh, is that it might not be easy for her. I've already spoken to the lady and I know something about her past. It took a lot of courage to stand up for her principles as she did. Some might say a lot of obstinacy. A woman who is capable of that has guts enough for anything, wouldn't you say?'

Dalgliesh watched the car lights until Rickards reached the coastal road and turned right, then locked the door and began a desultory tidying-up before bed. Looking back over the evening he recognized that he had been reluctant to talk to Rickards at length about his Friday morning visit to Larksoken Power Station and less than open about his reactions, perhaps because they had been more complex and the place itself more impressive than he had expected. He had been asked to arrive by 8.45 since Mair wanted to escort him personally and had to leave for a luncheon appointment in London. At the beginning of the visit he had asked: 'How much do you know about nuclear power?'

'Very little. Perhaps it might be wiser to assume that I know nothing.'

'In that case we'd better begin with the usual preamble about sources of radiation, and what is meant by nuclear power, nuclear energy and atomic energy, before we begin our tour of the plant. I've asked Miles Lessingham as Operations Superintendent to join us.'

It was the beginning of an extraordinary two hours. Dalgliesh, escorted by his two mentors, was garbed in protective clothing, divested of it, checked for radioactivity, subjected to an almost constant stream of facts and figures. He was aware, even coming as an outsider, that the station was run with exceptional efficiency, that a quietly competent and respected authority was in control. Alex Mair, ostensibly there to escort a man afforded the status of a distinguished visitor, was never uninvolved, always quietly watchful, obviously in charge. And the staff Dalgliesh met impressed him with their dedication as they patiently explained their jobs in terms which an intelligent layman could understand. He sensed beneath their professionalism a commitment to nuclear power amounting in some cases to a controlled enthusiasm combined with a defensiveness which was probably natural given the public's ambivalence about nuclear energy. When one of the engineers said: 'It's a dangerous technology but we need it and we can manage it', he heard, not the arrogance of scientific certainty but a reverence for the element which they controlled, almost the love-hate relationship of a sailor for the sea which was both a respected enemy and his natural habitat. If the tour had been designed to reassure, then it had to some extent succeeded. If nuclear power was safe in any hands then it would be safe in these. But how safe, and for how long?

He had stood in the great turbine hall, ears pulsating, while Mair produced his facts and figures about pressures, voltages and breaking capacity; had stood, garbed in protective clothing, and looked down where the spent elements lay like sinister fishes underwater in the fuel cooling pond for a hundred days before being dispatched to Sellafield for reprocessing; had walked to the edge of the sea to look at the cooling water plant and condensers. But the most interesting part of the visit had been in the reactor house. Mair, summoned by a bleep from his intercom, had temporarily left them and Dalgliesh was alone with Lessingham. They had stood on a high walkway looking down at the black charge floors of the two reactors. To one side of the reactor was one of the two immense fuelling machines. Remembering Toby Gledhill, Dalgliesh glanced at his companion. Lessingham's face was taut and so white that Dalgliesh feared that he was about to faint. Then he spoke almost like an automaton, reciting a lesson learned by rote.

'There are 26,488 fuel elements in each reactor and they're charged by the fuelling machinery over a period of five to ten years. Each of the fuelling machines is approximately 23 feet high and weighs 115 tons. It can hold 14 fuel elements as well as the other components which are necessary for the refuelling cycle. The pressure vessel is heavily shielded, with cast-iron and densified wood. What you see mounted on top of the machine is the hoist unit for lifting the fuel elements. There is also a connecting unit which couples the machine to the reactor and a television camera which allows viewing of the operations above the magazine.'

He broke off and, looking at him, Dalgliesh saw that the hands gripping the rail in front of him were shaking. Neither spoke. The spasm lasted less than ten seconds. Then Lessingham said: 'Shock is an odd phenomenon. I dreamed of watching Toby fall for weeks afterwards. Then the dream suddenly stopped. I thought I'd be able to look down at the reactor charge floor and put the image out of my mind. Most of the time I can. After all, I work here, this is my place. But the dream still recurs and sometimes, like now, I can see him lying there so clearly that it could be a hallucination.'

Dalgliesh felt that nothing he could say would be other than banal. Lessingham went on: 'I got to him first. He was lying prone but I couldn't turn him over. I couldn't make myself touch him. But I didn't need to. I knew that he was dead. He looked very small, disjointed, a rag doll. All I was aware of were those ridiculous symbols of a yellow bee on the heels of his trainers. Christ, was I glad to get rid of those bloody shoes.'

So Gledhill hadn't been wearing protective clothing. The impulse to suicide hadn't been completely spontaneous.

Dalgliesh said: 'He must have been a good climber.' 'Oh yes, Toby could climb. That was the least of his talents.'

And then, without a perceptible change in his voice, he continued with the description of the reactor and the procedure for loading new fuel into the reactor core. Five minutes later, Mair rejoined them. On their way back to his office at the end of the tour he had suddenly asked: 'Have you heard of Richard Feynman?'

'The American physicist? I saw a television programme about him a few months ago, otherwise the name wouldn't have meant anything to me.'

'Feynman said: "Far more marvellous is the truth than any artist of the past imagined. Why do poets of the present not speak of it?" You're a poet, but this place, the power it generates, the beauty of the engineering, the sheer magnificence of it, it doesn't particularly interest you, does it? You or any other poet?'

'It interests me. That doesn't mean that I can make poetry out of it.'

'No, your subjects are more predictable, aren't they? How does it go?

Twenty per cent to God and to His saints,

Twenty per cent to nature and her proxies.

And all the rest devoted to the plaints

Of guys pursued by or pursuing doxies.'

Dalgliesh said: 'The percentage for God and His saints is down but I'd agree that the doxies are more than holding their own.'

'And that poor devil out there, the Norfolk Whistler, he's not poetic either presumably.'

'He's human. That makes him a fit subject for poetry.'

'But not one you'd choose?'

Dalgliesh could have replied that a poet doesn't choose his subject, it chooses him. But one reason for escaping to Norfolk had been to avoid discussions about poetry and even if he had enjoyed talking about his writing, it wouldn't have been with Alex Mair. But he had been surprised how little he had resented the questions. It was difficult to like the man, impossible not to respect him. And if he had murdered Hilary Robarts then Rickards was faced with a formidable opponent.

As he raked out the last ashes of the fire he remembered again with extraordinary clarity that moment when he had stood with Lessingham and looked down at the dark charge floor of the reactor beneath which that potent and mysterious power was silently working away. He wondered how long it would be before Rickards asked himself why precisely the murderer had chosen that particular pair of shoes.

Rickards knew that Dalgiiesh was right; it would have been an unwarranted intrusion to call on Mrs Dennison so late at night. But he couldn't drive past the Old Rectory without slowing down and glancing to see if there was any sign of life. There was none; the house stood dark and silent behind the wind-torn bushes. Entering his own darkened house he felt a sudden overwhelming tiredness. But there was paperwork to be got through before he could go to bed, including his final report on the Whistler inquiry; awkward questions to be answered, a defence to be argued which would stand a chance of rebutting the charges, private and public, of police incompetence, poor supervision, too much reliance on technology and not enough good old-fashioned detection. And that was before he could begin scrutinizing the latest reports on the Robarts murder.

It was nearly four o'clock before he tore off his clothes and slumped face downwards on to the bed. Sometime during the night he must have been aware that he was cold for he awoke to find himself under the bedclothes and, stretching out his hand to the bedside lamp, saw with dismay that he had slept through the alarm and that it was almost eight o'clock. Instantly awake, he threw back the bedclothes and stumbled over to peer at himself in the glass of his wife's dressing table. The dressing table, kidney-shaped, was trimmed with pink and white flowered voile, the pretty matching set of ring stand and tray still neatly in place, a stuffed doll which Susie had won at a fair as a child hanging from the side of the glass. Only her jars of make-up were missing and their absence suddenly struck him as poignantly as if she were dead and they had been disposed of with the unimportant detritus of a life. What, he wondered, bending low to look more closely into the glass, had anything in this pink and white, utterly feminine bedroom, to do with that gaunt face, that rough, masculine torso? He experienced again what he had felt initially when they first moved in a month after the honeymoon, that nothing in the house was truly his. When he was a young DC he would have been amazed had anyone told him that he would achieve such a house, a gravel sweep of drive, its own half acre of garden, a drawing room and separate dining room, each with its carefully chosen suite of furniture which still smelt pristine new, reminding him every time he entered of the Oxford Street department store in which it had been chosen. But with Susie away he was again as ill at ease in it as if he were a barely tolerated and despised guest.

Dragging on his dressing gown, he opened the door of the small room at the south of the house which was to be the nursery. The cot was in pale lemon and white, matching the curtains. The changing table with its lower shelf for baby paraphernalia, its hanging bag for clean nappies, stood against the wall. The wallpaper was a riot of rabbits and leaping lambs. It was impossible to believe that any child of his would one day be sleeping here.

And it wasn't only the house which rejected him. With Susie absent it was sometimes difficult even to believe in the reality of his marriage. He had met her on a cultural cruise to Greece on which he had booked as an alternative to the usual solitary walking holiday. She had been one of the few younger women on the ship, travelling with her mother, the widow of a dentist. He realized now that it was Susie who had made the running, who had determined on the marriage, who had chosen him long before he had thought of choosing her. But the realization when it came was flattering rather than disturbing and, after all, he hadn't been unwilling. He had reached that time of life when he would occasionally indulge in an idealized picture of a wife waiting at home, domestic comfort, someone to return to at the end of the day, a child who would be his stake in the future, someone to work for.

And she had married him despite the opposition from her mother who at first had seemed to collude in the enterprise, perhaps reminding herself that Susie was twenty-eight and time was not on her side, but who, once the engagement had been secured, had made it plain that her only child could have done better, and had embarked on a policy of ostentatiously making the best of it while undertaking a vigorous campaign of his social re-education. But even she hadn't been able to find fault with the house. It had cost him all his savings and the mortgage was the largest his income could support but it stood as a solid symbol of the two things which mattered most to him, his marriage and his job.

Susie had been trained as a secretary but had seemed glad to give it up. If she had wanted to carry on working he would have supported her as he would in any interest she cared to take up. But he preferred her to be happily satisfied with the house and the garden, to find her waiting for him when he returned at the end of the day. It was not the kind of marriage that was currently fashionable, nor the kind that most couples could afford; but it was his kind of marriage and he was grateful that it was hers.

He hadn't been in love with her at the time of the marriage, he knew that now. He would, indeed, have said that he hardly knew the meaning of the word since it had certainly nothing to do with the half-shameful affairs, the humiliations of his earlier experiences with women. And yet not only poets and writers, the whole world used the word, seeming to know by instinct if not by direct experience exactly what it meant. Sometimes he felt uniquely disadvantaged, excluded from a universal birthright as a man might be who had been born without a sense of taste or smell. And when, three months after the honeymoon, he had fallen in love with Susie it had seemed like the revelation of something known but never experienced, as blinded eyes might suddenly open to the reality of light and colour and form. It was one night when, for the first time, she had found joy in his lovemaking and, half crying, half laughing, had clung to him whispering incoherent endearments. Tightening his arms about her he had known in what seemed a moment of amazed recognition that this was love. That moment of affirmation had been both a fulfilment and a promise, not the end of searching but the beginning of discovery. It left no room for doubts; his love, once acknowledged, seemed to him indestructible. Their marriage might have its moments of shared unhappiness and anxiety but it could never be less than it was at this moment. Was it really possible, he thought now, that it could be seriously threatened if not destroyed by its first serious test, her decision to give in to her mother's calculated mixture of bullying and entreaty and leave him when their first child was about to be born? When the baby was first placed in her arms he wanted to be there. Now he might not even be told when she went into labour. The picture which persistently haunted his imagination, before he fell asleep and at waking, of his mother-in-law standing triumphantly in the labour ward with his child in her arms deepened his dislike of her almost to paranoia.

To the right of the dressing table was one of their wedding photographs in a silver-plated frame, taken after a marriage ceremony which could have been specifically designed to emphasize the social differences between the two families. Susie was leaning a little towards him, her peaked, vulnerable face looking younger than her twenty-eight years, the fair head with its chaplet of flowers barely reaching his shoulder. The flowers had been artificial, rosebuds and lilies of the valley but, in memory as on the day, there rose from them a transitory sweetness. Her face, gravely smiling, revealed nothing, not even what the whole white mystique surely symbolized; this is what I worked for, what I want, what I've achieved. He was looking straight at the camera stolidly enduring what had after all been the last of the seemingly endless photographs taken outside the church. The family group had at last been released. Here were Susie and himself, legally yoked, an accepted pair. The photographic session had, it seemed in retrospect, been the most important part of the ceremony, the service merely a preliminary to this complicated arranging and rearranging of incongruously garbed strangers according to some hierarchy not wholly understood by him but of which the hectoring photographer was obviously master. He heard again his mother-in-law's voice: 'Yes, a bit of a rough diamond, I'm afraid, but he's really very able. Chief constable material, I'm told.'

Well, he wasn't chief constable material and she had known it, but at least she hadn't been able to criticize the house which he had provided for her only child.

It was an early hour to telephone and he knew that his mother-in-law, who was a late riser, would make the most of the first grievance of the day. But if he didn't speak to Susie now it might well be late at night before he had another opportunity. For a moment he stood looking down at the bedside telephone, unwilling to stretch out his hand. If things had been different, if it hadn't been for this new murder, he could have got in the Rover, driven north to York and brought her home. Face to face with him she might have found the strength to resist her mother. Now she would have to travel alone, or with Mrs Cartwright if her mother insisted on accompanying her. Well, he would put up with her if she insisted on coming and it might be better for Susie than facing the long train journey alone. But he wanted her home; he wanted her here in this house.

The ringing tone seemed to last for an inordinate time and it was his mother-in-law who answered, enunciating the number with weary resignation as if this had been the twentieth call of the morning.

He said: 'This is Terry, Mrs Cartwright. Is Susie awake?'

He had never called her mother. That was a nonsense which he had not been able to get his tongue round and, to do her justice, she had never suggested it.

'Well, she will be now, won't she? Not very considerate, Terry, to ring before nine. Susie isn't sleeping very well just now and she needs her lie-in. And she was trying to get you all last evening. Hold on.'

And then, at least a minute later, came the small, tentative: 'Terry?'

'Are you all right, darling?'

'Yes, everything's fine. Mummy took me to Dr Maine yesterday. He used to look after me when I was a child. He's keeping an eye on me and he says that everything's going on very well. He's booked me a bed in the local hospital just in case.'

So she's even got that fixed up, he thought bitterly, and for a moment the treacherous thought lodged in his mind that the two of them might have planned it together, that this was what Susie wanted. He said: 'I'm sorry I couldn't spend longer on the phone yesterday. Things got pretty hectic. But I wanted you to know that the Whistler was dead.'

'It's been in all the papers, Terry. It's wonderful news. Are you all right? Are you feeding yourself properly?'

'Fine. I'm fine. Tired, but I'm OK. Look, darling, this new murder, it's different. We haven't got another serial murderer on the loose. The danger's over now. I'm afraid there's no chance I can get away to fetch you, but I could meet you at Norwich. Do you think you could make it today? There's a fast train at two minutes past three. If your mother would like to come, stay until after the baby is born, well that's all right, of course.'

It wasn't all right, but it was a small price to pay.

'Hold on, Terry. Mummy wants to talk to you.'

Then, after another long delay, he heard her mother's voice.

'Susie is staying here, Terry.'

'The Whistler is dead, Mrs Cartwright. The danger's over.'

'I know that the Whistler's dead. But you've had another murder down there, haven't you? There's still a killer at large and you're the man who's hunting him. This baby is due in less than two weeks and what Susie needs now is to get away from murder and death. Her health has to be my first consideration. What she needs is a little cosseting and kindness.'

'She's had that here, Mrs Cartwright.'

'I dare say you did your best, but you're never there, are you? Susie rang you four times last night. She really needed to talk to you, Terry, and you weren't there. It isn't good enough, not now it isn't. Out half the night catching murderers or not catching them. I know that's your job but it's hardly fair on Susie. I want my grandchild born safely. A girl's place is with her mother at a time like this.'

'I thought that a wife's place was with her husband.'

Oh, God, he thought, that I should ever hear myself speaking those words. A wave of utter misery swept over him compounded of self-disgust, anger and despair. He thought, If she doesn't come today she'll never come. The baby will be born in York and her mother will hold him in her arms before I do. She'll get her clutches into both of them, now and for ever. He knew how strong was that bond between widow and only child. There wasn't a day when Susie didn't telephone her mother, sometimes more than once. He knew with what difficulty and patience he had begun to wean her away from that obsessive maternal embrace. Now he had given Mrs Cartwright another weapon. He heard the triumph in her voice.

'Don't you talk to me about a wife's place, Terry. You'll be talking about Susie's duty next. And what about your duty to her? You've told her you can't get away to fetch her and I'm certainly not having my grandchild born on a British Rail train. Susie is staying here until this latest murder is solved and you can find time to fetch her.'

And then he was cut off. Slowly he replaced the receiver and stood waiting. Perhaps Susie would ring back. He could, of course, ring again but he knew with a sick hopelessness that there would be no use. She wasn't going to come. And then the telephone rang. He snatched up the receiver and said eagerly: 'Hello? Hello?'

But it was only Sergeant Oliphant ringing from the incident room at Hoveton, an early call letting him know that Oliphant had either been up all night or had snatched even less sleep than he. His own four hours now seemed an indulgence.

'The Chief Constable's trying to get you, sir. I told his PA there'd be no point in ringing home. You'd be on your way here by now.'

'I shall be on my way in five minutes. Not to Hoveton but to the Old Rectory at Larksoken. Mr Dalgliesh has given us a strong lead on the Bumble trainers. Meet me outside the rectory in three quarters of an hour. And you'd better ring Mrs Dennison now. Tell her to keep the back door locked and not to admit anyone to the house until we come. Don't alarm her; just say that there are one or two questions we have to put to her and we'd rather she spoke to us this morning before she talked to anyone else.'

If Oliphant was excited at the news he managed to conceal it. He said: 'You haven't forgotten that PR have fixed a press conference for ten, sir? Bill Starling from the local radio has been on to me but I told him he'll have to wait until then. And I think the CC wants to know if we're going to release the approximate time of death.'

And the Chief Constable wasn't the only one. It had been useful to fudge the approximate time of the murder, to avoid stating categorically that this couldn't have been the work of the Whistler. But sooner or later they would have to come clean and once the post-mortem report was to hand, it would be difficult to parry the media's insistent questions. He said: 'We shan't release any forensic information until we get the written report of the autopsy.'

'We've got that now, sir. Doc Maitland-Brown dropped it in about twenty minutes ago on his way to the hospital. He was sorry he couldn't wait to see you.'

I'll bet he was, thought Rickards. Nothing, of course, would have been said; Dr Maitland-Brown didn't gossip with junior police officers. But there must have been a cosy atmosphere of mutual self-congratulation in the incident room on their joint early start to the day. He said: 'There's no reason why he should have waited. All the stuff we need from him will be in the report. Better open it now, give me the gist.'

He heard the receiver being placed down on the desk. There was a silence of less than a minute, then Oliphant spoke: 'No sign of recent sexual activity. She wasn't raped. Seems she was an exceptionally healthy woman until someone slung a ligature round her neck and strangled her. He can be a bit more precise about the time of death now he's seen the stomach contents, but he hasn't changed his first estimate. Between 8.30 and 9.45, but if we want to make it 9.20 he won't object. And she wasn't pregnant, sir.'

'All right, Sergeant. I'll be with you outside the Old Rectory in about forty-five minutes.'

But he was damned if he was going to face a heavy day without breakfast. Quickly he peeled a couple of rashers from the packet in the refrigerator and placed them under the grill, turning it to full power, then switched on the kettle and reached for a mug. Time for one mug of strong coffee, then he'd put the rashers between two hunks of bread and eat them in the car.

Forty minutes later, driving through Lydsett, he thought about the previous evening. He hadn't suggested to Adam Dalgliesh that he should come with the police to the Old Rectory. It wasn't necessary; his information had been precise and specific, and it hardly needed a Commander of the Metropolitan Police to point out a tea chest of discarded shoes. But there was another reason. He had been happy enough to drink Dalgliesh's whisky, eat his stew, or whatever it was he had called it, to discuss the salient points of the investigation. What else, after all, had they in common except their jobs? But that certainly didn't mean that he wanted Dalgliesh present while he was actually doing it. He had been glad the previous evening to call at the mill, grateful that he hadn't to return to an empty house, had sat companionably by the wood fire and had felt, by the end of the evening, at least comfortably at ease. But once away from Dalgliesh's physical presence, the old uncertainties returned as they had with such disconcerting force at the deathbed of the Whistler. He knew he would never be totally at one with the man and he knew why. He had only to think of the incident now and the old resentment would come flooding back. And yet it had happened nearly twelve years ago and he doubted whether Dalgliesh even remembered it. That, of course, was the greater part of the injury, that words which had remained in his memory for years, which at the time had humiliated him and almost destroyed his confidence as a detective, could be so easily spoken and apparently so quickly forgotten.

The place was a small top room in a narrow warren of a house behind the Edgware Road, the victim a fifty-year-old prostitute. She had been dead for over a week when they found her and the stink in the cluttered, airless hovel had been so disgusting that he had had to press his handkerchief against his mouth to hold back the vomit. One of the DCs had been less successful. He had rushed to throw open the window and might have made it if the pane hadn't been grimed fast. He himself had been unable to swallow, as if his own spittle had become contaminated. The handkerchief held against his mouth was soaked with saliva. She had been lying naked among the bottles, the pills, the half-eaten food, an obscene putrefying lump of flesh only a foot from the brimming chamber pot which she hadn't in the end been able to reach. But that had been the least of the stench in the room. After the pathologist had left he had turned to the nearest PC and said: 'For God's sake, can't we get this thing out of here?'

And then he had heard Dalgliesh's voice from the doorway like a whiplash. 'Sergeant, the word is "body". Of, if you prefer, there's "cadaver", "corpse", "victim", even "deceased" if you must. What you are looking at was a woman. She was not a thing when she was alive and she is not a thing now.'

He could still react physically to the memory of it, feel the tightening of the stomach muscles, the hot surge of anger. He shouldn't have let it pass, of course, not a public rebuke like that, not in front of the DCs. He should have looked the arrogant bastard in the face and spoken the truth, even if it had cost him his stripes.

'But she isn't a woman now is she, sir? She's not a human being any more, is she? So if she isn't human, what is she?'

It had been the unfairness that had rankled. There were a dozen of his colleagues who would have merited that cold rebuke, but not he. He had never at any time since his promotion to the CID seen the victim as an unimportant lump of flesh, never taken a prurient, half-shameful pleasure in the sight of a naked body, had rarely seen even the most degraded, most disgusting of victims without some pity and often with pain. His words had been totally out of character, torn from him out of hopelessness, tiredness after a nineteen-hour day, out of uncontrollable physical disgust. It was bad luck that they should have been overheard by Dalgliesh, a DCI whose cold sarcasm could be more devastating than another officer's bawled obscenities. They had continued working together for another six months. Nothing further had been said. Apparently Dalgliesh had found his work satisfactory; at least there hadn't been any further criticism. There hadn't been any praise, either. He had been scrupulously correct to his superior officer; Dalgliesh had acted as if the incident had never taken place. If he later regretted his words he had never said so. Perhaps he would have been amazed to know how bitterly, almost obsessively, they had been resented. But now, for the first time, Rickards wondered whether Dalgliesh too might not have been under strain, driven by his own compulsions, finding relief in the bitterness of words. After all, hadn't he at the time recently lost his wife and newborn child? But what had that to do with a dead prostitute in a London whorehouse? And he should have known better. That was the nub of it. He should have known his man. It seemed to Rickards that to remember the incident for so long and with such anger was almost paranoid. But the thought of Dalgliesh on his patch had brought it all back. Worse things had happened to him, more serious criticisms accepted and forgotten. But this he couldn't forget. Sitting by the wood fire in Larksoken Mill, drinking Dalgliesh's whisky, nearly equal in rank, secure on his own patch, it had seemed to him that the past might be put aside. But he knew now that it couldn't. Without that memory he and Adam Dalgliesh might have become friends. Now he respected him, admired him, valued his opinion, could even feel at ease with him. But he told himself that he could never like him.

Oliphant was waiting outside the Old Rectory, not sitting in the car but lolling cross-legged against the bonnet and reading a tabloid newspaper. The impression given and no doubt intended was that he had been wasting time there for the past ten minutes. As the car approached he straightened up and handed over the paper. He said: 'They've gone to town a bit, sir. Only to be expected, I suppose.'

The story hadn't made the front page but was spread over the two centre pages with black headlines and a screamer: 'Not again!' The byline was the paper's crime correspondent. Rickards read:

I have today learned that Neville Potter, the man now identified as the Whistler, who killed himself in the Balmoral Hotel at Easthaven on Sunday, had been interviewed by the police early in their inquiry and eliminated. The question is, why? The police knew the type of man they were looking for. A loner. Probably unmarried or divorced. Unsociable. A man with a car and a job that took him out at night. Neville Potter was just such a man. If he had been caught when he was first interviewed the lives of four innocent women could have been saved. Have we learned nothing from the Yorkshire Ripper fiasco?

Rickards said: 'The usual predictable nonsense. Female murder victims are either prostitutes who presumably deserve what they get or innocent women.'

Walking up the drive to the Old Rectory he quickly scanned the rest of the article. Its argument was that the police relied too much on computers, on mechanical aids, fast cars, technology. It was time to get back to the bobby on the beat. What use was feeding interminable data into a computer when an ordinary DC wasn't competent to spot an obvious suspect? The article was no more acceptable to Rickards because it expressed some of his own views.

He threw it back at Oliphant and said: 'What are they suggesting, that we could have trapped the Whistler by stationing a uniformed bobby on the beat at every country road intersection? You told Mrs Dennison that we were coming and asked her to keep out visitors?'

'She sounded none too pleased, sir. Said the only visitors who were likely to call were the headlanders and what reason could she give for turning away her friends. No one has called so far, at least not at the front door.'

'And you checked on the back door?'

'You said to wait outside for you, sir. I haven't been round the back.'

It was hardly a promising beginning. But if Oliphant, with his usual tactlessness, had managed to antagonize Mrs Dennison she showed no sign of displeasure on opening the door but welcomed them in with grave courtesy. Rickards thought again how attractive she was with a gentle old-fashioned prettiness which he supposed people used to call the English rose type when English rose prettiness was in fashion. Even her clothes had an air of anachronistic gentility, not the ubiquitous trousers but a grey pleated skirt and a matching cardigan over a blue blouse with a single row of pearls. But despite her apparent composure she was very pale, the carefully applied pink lipstick almost garish against the bloodless skin, and he saw that her shoulders were rigid under the thin wool.

She said: 'Won't you come into the drawing room, Chief Inspector, and explain what this is all about? And I expect you and your sergeant would like some coffee.'

'It's good of you, Mrs Dennison, but I'm afraid we haven't the time. I hope we won't have to keep you for long. We're looking for a pair of shoes, Bumble trainers, which we have reason to believe may be in your jumble box. Could we see it please?'

She gave them one quick glance then, without speaking, led them through a door at the rear of the hall and down a short passage leading to another door which was bolted. She reached up to the bolt which slid easily and they found themselves in a second and shorter passage, stone-flagged, facing a formidably stout back door which was also bolted at the top and bottom. There was a room on either side. The door on the right stood open.

Mrs Dennison led them in. She said: 'We keep the jumble here. As I told Sergeant Oliphant when he telephoned, the back door was double-locked at five last evening and has remained bolted. During the daytime I usually open it so that anyone who has jumble can come in and leave it without bothering to knock.'

Oliphant said: 'Which means they could help themselves to the stuff as well as leave it. Aren't you afraid of theft?'

'This is Larksoken, Sergeant, not London.'

The room, stone-flagged, brick-walled and with a single high window, must originally have been either a pantry or perhaps a store room. Its present use was immediately apparent. Against the wall were two tea chests, the left one about three-quarters full of shoes and the right containing a jumble of belts, bags and men's ties knotted together. Next to the door were two long shelves. On one stood an assortment of bric-a-brac; cups and saucers, fairings, small statuettes, saucers and plates, a portable radio, a bedside lamp with a cracked and grubby shade. The second shelf held a row of old and rather tattered books, most of them paperbacks. A row of hooks had been screwed into the lower shelf on which hung hangers holding a variety of better-quality clothes; men's suits, jackets, women's dresses and children's clothes, some of them already priced on small scraps of paper pinned to the hem. Oliphant stood for no more than a couple of seconds surveying the room, and then turned his attention to the box of shoes. It took less than a minute of rummaging to confirm that the Bumbles weren't there, but he began a systematic search, watched by Rickards and Mrs Dennison. Each pair, most tied together by the laces, was taken out and placed on one side until the box was empty and then as methodically replaced. Rickards took a right-foot Bumble trainer from his briefcase and handed it to Mrs Dennison.

'The shoes we are looking for are like this. Can you remember if a pair were ever in the jumble box and, if so, who brought them in?'

She said at once: 'I didn't realize they were called Bumbles but, yes, there was a pair like this in the box. Mr Miles Lessingham from the power station brought them in. He was asked to dispose of the clothes of the young man who killed himself at Larksoken. Two of the suits hanging up here also belonged to Toby Gledhill.'

'When did Mr Lessingham bring in the shoes, Mrs Dennison?'

'I can't remember exactly. I think it was late afternoon a week or so after Mr Gledhill died, sometime towards the end of last month. But you'd have to ask him, Chief Inspector. He may remember more precisely.'

'And he brought them to the front door?'

'Oh yes. He said he wouldn't stay to tea but he did have a word in the drawing room with Mrs Copley. Then he brought the suitcase of clothes out here with me and we unpacked them together. I put the shoes in a plastic bag.'

'And when did you last see them?'

'I can't possibly remember that, Chief Inspector. I don't come out here very often except occasionally to price up some of the clothes. And when I do I don't necessarily look in the shoe box.'

'Not even to see what's been brought in?'

'Yes, I do that from time to time, but I don't make any kind of regular inspection.'

'They're very distinctive shoes, Mrs Dennison.'

'I know that, and if I'd rummaged about in the box recently I must have seen them or even noticed that they were missing. But I didn't. I'm afraid I can't possibly say when they were taken.'

'How many people know about the system here?'

'Most of the headlanders know, and any staff at Larksoken Power Station who regularly donate jumble. They usually come by car, of course, on their way home and sometimes, like Mr Lessingham, ring at the front door. Occasionally I take the bags from them at the door or they may say that they'll drop them in at the back. We don't actually hold the jumble sale here, that takes place in the village hall in Lydsett in October. But this is a convenient collecting place for the headland and for the power station, and then Mr Sparks or Mr Jago from the Local Hero comes in a van and loads it up a day or two before the sale.'

'But I see you price up some of the stuff here.'

'Not all of it, Chief Inspector. It's just that occasionally we know of people who might like some of the items and who buy them before the sale.'

The admission seemed to embarrass her. Rickards wondered whether the Copleys might not benefit in this way. He knew about jumble sales. His ma had helped with the annual one at the Chapel. The helpers expected to get the pick of the goods; that was their perk. And why not? He said: 'You mean that anyone local wanting clothes, maybe for his kids, would know that he could buy them here?'

She flushed. He could see that the suggestion and perhaps his choice of pronoun had embarrassed her. She said: 'Lydsett people usually wait until the main sale. After all, it wouldn't be worthwhile, people coming in from the village just to see what we're collecting. But sometimes I sell to people on the headland. After all, the jumble is given in aid of the church. There's no reason why it shouldn't be sold in advance if someone local happens to want it. Naturally they pay the proper price.'

'And who has from time to time wanted it, Mrs Dennison?'

'Mr Blaney has occasionally bought clothes for the children. One of Mr Gledhill's tweed jackets fitted Mr Copley so Mrs Copley paid for that. And Neil Pascoe called in about a fortnight ago to see if we had anything suitable for Timmy.'

Oliphant asked: 'Was that before or after Mr Lessingham brought in the trainers?'

'I can't remember, Sergeant. You'd better ask him. We neither of us looked in the shoe box. Mr Pascoe was interested in warm jumpers for Timmy. He paid for two. There's a tin with the money on a shelf in the kitchen.'

'So people don't just help themselves and leave the cash?'

'Oh no, Chief Inspector. No one would dream of doing that.'

'And what about the belts? Would you be able to say whether one of the belts or straps is missing?'

She said with a sudden spurt of impatience: 'How could I possibly do that? Look for yourself. This box is literally a jumble; straps, belts, old handbags, scarves. How could I possibly say if anything is missing or when it was taken?'

Oliphant said: 'Would it surprise you to be told that we have a witness who saw the trainers in this box last Wednesday morning?'

Oliphant could make the simplest and most innocuous question sound like an accusation. But his crudeness, sometimes bordering on insolence, was usually carefully judged and Rickards seldom attempted to discipline it knowing that it had its uses. It had, after all, been Oliphant who had got close to shaking Alex Mair's composure. But now he should perhaps have remembered that he was talking to an ex-schoolmistress. Mrs Dennison turned on him the mildly reproving look more appropriate to a delinquent child.

'I don't think you can have been listening carefully to what I've been saying, Sergeant. I have no idea when the shoes were taken. That being so, how could it surprise me to learn when they were last seen?' She turned to Rickards: 'If we're going to discuss this further, wouldn't it be more comfortable for all of us in the drawing room than standing about here?'

Rickards hoped that it might at least be warmer.

She led them across the hall into a room at the front of the house which faced south over the lumpy lawn and the tangle of laurels, rhododendrons and wind-stunted bushes which effectively screened the road. The room was large and barely warmer than the one they had left, as if even the strongest autumn sun had been unable to penetrate the mullioned windows and the heavy drapes of the velvet curtains. And the air was a little stuffy, smelling of polish, pot-pourri and faintly of rich food as if still redolent with long-eaten Victorian afternoon teas. Rickards almost expected to hear the rustle of a crinoline.

Mrs Dennison didn't switch on the light and Rickards felt that he could hardly ask her. In the gloom he had an impression of solid mahogany furniture, side tables laden with photographs, of comfortably upholstered armchairs in shabby covers and of so many pictures in ornate frames that the room had the air of an oppressive and rarely visited provincial gallery. Mrs Dennison seemed aware of the cold if not of the gloom. She stooped to plug in a two-bar electric fire to the right of the huge carved grate then seated herself with her back towards the window, and gestured Rickards and Oliphant to the sofa on which they sat side by side solidly upright on stiff, unyielding cushions. She sat quietly waiting, her hands folded in her lap. The room with its weight of dark mahogany, its air of ponderous respectability diminished her and it seemed to Rickards that she gleamed like a pale and insubstantial wraith dwarfed by the huge arms of the chair. He wondered about her life on the headland and in this remote and surely unmanageable house, wondered what she had been seeking when she fled to this wind-scoured coast and whether she had found it.

He asked: 'When was it decided that the Reverend and Mrs Copley should go to stay with their daughter?'

'Last Friday, after Christine Baldwin was murdered. She'd been very anxious about them for some time and pressing them to leave, but it was the fact that the last murder was so very close that persuaded them. I was to drive them to Norwich to catch the 8.30 on Sunday evening.'

'Was that generally known?'

'It was talked about, I expect. You could say it was generally known in as far as there are people here to know it. Mr Copley had to make arrangements for the services he normally takes. I told Mrs Bryson at the stores that I would only be needing half a pint of milk a day instead of the normal two and a half pints. Yes, you could say it was generally known.'

'And why didn't you drive them to Norwich as arranged?'

'Because the car broke down while they were finishing the packing. I thought I'd explained that already. At about half-past six I went to get it out of the garage and drove it to the front door. It was all right then but when I finally got them into it at 7.15 and we were ready to go it wouldn't start. So I rang Mr Sparks at Lydsett Garage and arranged for him to take them in his taxi.'

'Without you?'

Before she could answer Oliphant got to his feet, walked over to a standard lamp close to his chair and, without a word, switched it on. The strong light flowed down on her. For a moment Rickards thought that she was about to protest. She half rose from the chair, then sat down again and went on as if nothing had happened.

'I felt bad about that. I would have been much happier to have seen them on the train, but Mr Sparks could only take the job if he could go straight on to Ipswich where he had to pick up a fare. But he promised he wouldn't leave them until he'd seen them into the carriage. And, of course, they're not children, they're perfectly capable of getting out at Liverpool Street. It's the terminus, after all; and their daughter was meeting them.'

Why, Rickards wondered, was she so defensive? She could hardly suppose herself a serious suspect. And yet, why not? He had known less likely murderers. He could see fear in the dozen small signs which no experienced policeman could miss; the tremble of the hands which she tried to control when his glance fell on them, the nervous tic at the corner of the eye, the inability to sit still one moment followed by an unnatural, controlled stillness the next, the note of strain in the voice, the way in which she was resolutely meeting his eyes with a look compounded of defiance and endurance. Taken singly each was a sign of natural stress; together they added up to something close to terror. He had resented Adam Dalgliesh's warning the previous night. It had been uncomfortably close to teaching him his job. But perhaps he had been right. Perhaps he was facing a woman who had suffered more aggressive interrogations than she could take. But he had his job to do.

He said: 'You phoned for the taxi straight away? You didn't try to find out what was wrong with the car?'

'There was no time to fuss about under the bonnet. I'm not a mechanic anyway. I've never been particularly good with a car. It was lucky that I found out in time that it wouldn't go, and even luckier that Mr Sparks could oblige. He came at once. Mr and Mrs Copley were getting very agitated. Their daughter was expecting them; all the arrangements had been made. It was important to catch the train.'

'Where was the car normally kept, Mrs Dennison?' 'I thought I told you that, Chief Inspector. In the garage.' 'Locked?'

'There's a padlock. Quite a small one. I don't suppose it's very secure if someone really wanted to break it, but no one has ever tried. It was locked when I went for the car.'

'Three-quarters of an hour before you needed to leave,' 'Yes. I don't understand what you're getting at. Is that significant?'

'I'm just curious, Mrs Dennison. Why so much time?'

'Have you ever had to load a car with the luggage required by two elderly people leaving for an indefinite stay? I had been helping Mrs Copley with the final part of her packing. I wasn't needed for a minute or so and it seemed a good opportunity to get the car out.'

'And while it stood there in front of the house, was it continually under your eye?'

'Of course not. I was busy checking that the Copleys had everything that they needed, going over the things I needed to do while they were away, parish business, a few telephone calls.'

'Where was this happening?'

'In Mr Copley's study. Mrs Copley was in her bedroom.'

'And the car was unattended in the drive?'

'Are you suggesting that someone sabotaged it?'

'Well, that would be a little fanciful, wouldn't it? What gave you that idea?'

'You did, Chief Inspector. It wouldn't otherwise have occurred to me. And I agree, it's fanciful.'

'And when, at 9.45, Mr Jago rang from the Local Hero to tell you that the Whistler's body had been found, what did you do then?'

'There was nothing I could do. There was no way of ' stopping the Copleys; they were over an hour into their journey. I rang their daughter at her London club and managed to catch her before she set out for Liverpool Street. She said that she'd made all her arrangements so that they might as well stay for a week since they were on their way. Actually, they're coming home tomorrow afternoon. Mrs Duncan-Smith has been called to help nurse a sick friend.'

Rickards said: 'One of my officers has seen Mr Sparks. He was anxious to reassure you that the Copleys were safely on their way. He rang you as soon as convenient for him but could get no reply. That was at about 9.15, about the same time as Mr Jago first tried to get through to you.'

'I must have been in the garden. It was a beautiful moonlit night and I was restless. I needed to get out of the house.'

'Even with the Whistler, as you thought, still at large?'

'Strangely enough, Chief Inspector, I've never been very frightened of the Whistler. The threat always seemed remote, a little unreal.'

'You went no further than the garden?'

She looked at him straight in the eyes. 'I went no further than the garden.'

'Yet you didn't hear the telephone?'

'It is a large garden.'

'But it was a quiet night, Mrs Dennison.'

She didn't reply.

He asked: 'And when did you come in from wandering alone in the dark?'

'I wouldn't describe a stroll around the garden as wandering alone after dark. I suppose I was out for about half an hour. I had been back about five minutes when Mr Jago rang.'

'And when did you hear about the Robarts murder, Mrs Dennison? Obviously it wasn't news to you when we met at Martyr's Cottage.'

'I thought you already knew that, Chief Inspector. Miss Mair telephoned me shortly after seven on Monday morning. She herself knew when her brother returned late on Sunday night after seeing the body but she didn't want to disturb me at midnight, particularly with such distressing news.'

Oliphant asked: 'And was it distressing news, madam? You hardly knew Miss Robarts. Why should it be so distressing?'

Mrs Dennison gave him a long look, then turned away. She said: 'If you really have to ask that question, Sergeant, are you sure you're in the right job?'

Rickards rose to go. She came with him to the front door. As they were leaving she turned to him and said with sudden urgency: 'Chief Inspector, I'm not stupid. All these questions about the shoes. Obviously you've found a print at the scene and you think it could have been made by the murderer. But surely Bumbles aren't uncommon. Anyone could have been wearing them. The fact that Toby Gledhill's pair are missing could be simply coincidence. They weren't necessarily taken with evil purpose. Anyone needing a pair of trainers could have stolen them.'

Oliphant looked at her. 'Oh, I don't think so, madam, do you? As you said yourself only half an hour ago, this is Larksoken, not London.' And he smiled his thick-lipped, self-satisfied smile.

Rickards wanted to see Lessingham at once but the press conference called for ten meant that the interview had to be postponed and, to complicate matters further, a telephone call to Larksoken Power Station revealed that Lessingham had taken a day's leave but had left a message saying he could be reached at his cottage outside Blakeney. Luckily he was at home and, without explanation, Oliphant made an appointment for midday.

They were less than five minutes late and it was the more frustrating, therefore, to find when they arrived at the low-built wood and brick cottage set back on the coastal road a mile to the north of the village that he wasn't at home. A note in pencil was tacked to the front door.

'Anyone wanting me, try the Heron, berthed at Blakeney quay. That includes the police.'

'Bloody cheek!' complained Oliphant. As if unwilling to believe that any suspect could be as wilfully uncooperative, he tried the door, peered in at the window, then disappeared round the back. Returning he said: 'Ramshackle. Could do with a lick of paint. Funny place to choose to live. These marshes are pretty dreary in winter. You'd think he'd want a bit of life around him.'

Rickards privately agreed that it was an odd place for Lessingham to choose. His cottage looked as if it had once been a pair, now converted into a single dwelling, and, although agreeably proportioned with a certain melancholy charm, it looked at first sight unoccupied and neglected. Lessingham was a senior engineer after all, or technician, he couldn't for the moment remember which. Anyway, he hardly lived here because he was poor.

He said: 'He probably wants to be close to his boat.

There's not much choice of harbour on this coast. It was either there or Wells-next-the-Sea.'

As they got back into the car, Oliphant gazed back at the cottage resentfully as if it were concealing behind the peeling paint some secret which a few vigorous kicks on the door might persuade it to divulge. Fastening his seat belt, he grumbled: 'And when we get to the quay I suppose there'll be a notice telling us to try the pub.'

But Lessingham was where he said he'd be. Ten minutes later they came up to him, sitting on an upturned crate on the deserted quay, an outboard motor in front of him. Berthed beside him was a thirty-foot sailing boat with a central cabin. It was obvious that he hadn't yet started to work. A relatively clean rag drooped from fingers which seemed too listless to hold it and he was regarding the engine as if it posed an intractable problem. He looked up as they stood over him and Rickards was shocked at the change in him. In only two days he seemed to have aged ten years. He was barefoot and wore a faded dark blue guernsey over knee-length denim shorts fashionably tattered at the edges. But this informal garb seemed only to emphasize his urban pallor, the skin taut over the wide cheekbones, the smudges like bruises under the deep-set eyes. He was a part-time sailor after all, thought Rickards. Extraordinary that even this bad summer hadn't produced more than a biscuit-coloured tan.

Lessingham didn't get up, but said without preamble: 'You were lucky to catch me when you rang. A day's leave is too good to waste indoors, particularly now. I thought we could talk here as well as anywhere.'

Rickards said: 'Not altogether. Somewhere more private would be better.'

'This is private enough. The locals can recognize the police when they see them. Of course if you want me to make a formal statement or were thinking of arresting me, I'd prefer the police station. I like to keep my house and my boat uncontaminated.' He added: 'I mean uncontaminated by disagreeable sensations.'

Oliphant said stolidly: 'Why do you suppose we would want to arrest you? Arrest you for what exactly?' He added: 'sir', and made the word sound like a threat.

Rickards felt a spurt of irritation. It was like the man not to miss an easy opening but this childish preliminary sparring would hardly smooth the interrogation. Lessingham looked at Oliphant, seriously considering whether the question needed a reply.

'God knows. I suppose you could think of something if you put your minds to it.' Then, seeming to realize for the first time that they were having to stand, he got up. 'All right, better come on board.'

Rickards wasn't a sailor, but it seemed to him that the boat, all wood, was old. The cabin, which they had to crouch low to enter, had a narrow mahogany table down the whole length and a bench on either side. Lessingham seated himself opposite them and they regarded each other across two feet of polished wood, their faces so close that Rickards felt he could smell his companions, a masculine amalgam of sweat, warm wool, beer and Oliphant's aftershave, as if all three were claustrophobically caged animals. It could hardly have been a more unsuitable place in which to conduct an interview, and he wondered whether Adam Dalgliesh would have engineered things better and despised himself for the thought. He was aware of Oliphant's great bulk beside him, their thighs touching, Oliphant's unnaturally warm, and had to resist an impulse to edge further away.

He said: 'Is this your boat, sir? The one you were sailing last Sunday night?'

'Not sailing, Chief Inspector, for much of the time; there wasn't enough wind. But yes, this is my boat and this is the one I was on last Sunday.'

'You seem to have damaged the hull. There's a long fresh-looking scratch on the starboard side.'

'Clever of you to notice. I scraped the water tower offshore from the power station. Careless of me. I've sailed these waters often enough. If you'd come a couple of hours later it would have been repainted.'

'And do you still say that you were never at any time within sight of the beach where Miss Robarts took her last swim?'

'You asked me that question when you saw me on Monday. It depends what you mean by "in sight of". I could have seen the beach through my binoculars if I'd happened to look, but I can confirm that I never got to within half a mile of it and that I didn't land. Since I could hardly murder her without landing, that seems to me conclusive. But I don't suppose you've come all this way just to hear me repeat my alibi.'

Reaching down with difficulty, Oliphant dragged his grip on to the seat beside him, took out a pair of Bumble trainers and placed them on the table neatly, side by side. Rickards watched Lessingham's face. He controlled himself immediately but he hadn't been able to disguise the shock of recognition in the eyes, the tensing of the muscles around the mouth. The pair of trainers, pristine, new, grey and white, with the small bumblebee on each heel, seemed to dominate the cabin. Having placed them there, Oliphant ignored them.

He said: 'But you were south of the water towers at the power station. The scratch is on the starboard side. You must have been travelling north, sir, when you got that scrape.'

‘I turned for home when I was about fifty yards beyond the towers. I'd planned to make the power station the limit of the journey.'

Rickards said: 'These trainers, sir, have you seen a pair like these?'

'Of course. They're Bumbles. Not everyone can afford them but most people have seen them.'

'Have you seen them worn by anyone who worked at Larksoken?'

'Yes, Toby Gledhill had a pair. After he killed himself his parents asked me if I'd clear out his clothes. There weren't very many. Toby travelled light, but I suppose there were a couple of suits, the usual trousers and jackets and half a dozen pairs of shoes. The trainers were among them. Actually, they were almost new. He bought them about ten days before he died. He only wore them once.'

'And what did you do with them, sir?'

'I bundled up all the clothes and took them to the Old Rectory for the next church jumble sale. The Copleys have a small room at the back of the house where people can leave their junk. From time to time Dr Mair puts a notice on the notice board asking people to donate anything they don't want. It's part of the policy of being part of the community, all one happy family on the headland. We may not always go to church but we show goodwill by bestowing on the righteous our cast-off clothes.'

'When did you take Mr Gledhill's clothes to the Old Rectory?'

'I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a fortnight after he died. Just before the weekend I think. Probably on Friday the twenty-sixth of August. Mrs Dennison may remember. I doubt whether it's worth asking Mrs Copley, although I did see her.'

'So you handed them over to Mrs Dennison?'

'That's right. Actually, the back door of the rectory is usually kept open during daylight hours and people can walk in and drop anything they want to leave. But I thought on this occasion that it would be better to hand the things over formally. I wasn't entirely sure they'd be welcome. Some people are superstitious about buying the clothes of the recently dead. And it seemed, well, inappropriate just to drop them.'

'What happened at the Old Rectory?'

'Nothing very much. Mrs Dennison opened the door and showed me into the drawing room. Mrs Copley was there and I explained why I had called. She produced the usual meaningless platitudes about Toby's death and Mrs Dennison asked me if I would like tea. I declined and followed her through the hall to the room at the back where they store the jumble. There's a large tea chest there which holds the shoes. The pairs are just tied by the laces and thrown in. I had Toby's clothes in a suitcase and Mrs Dennison and I unpacked it together. She said that the suits were really too good for the jumble sale and asked if I'd mind if she sold them separately, provided, of course, the money went to church funds. She thought she might get a better price. I had a feeling that she was wondering whether Mr Copley might not use one of the jackets. I said she could do what she liked with them.'

'And what happened to the trainers? Were they put into the tea chest with the rest of the shoes?'

'Yes, but in a plastic bag. Mrs Dennison said they were in too good a condition to be thrown in with the others and get dirty. She went off and returned with the bag. She seemed to be uncertain what to do with the suits so I said I'd leave the suitcase. It was Toby's after all. It could be sold at the jumble sale with the rest of the things. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, jumble to jumble. I was glad to see the end of it.'

Rickards said: 'I read about Dr Gledhill's suicide, of course. It must have been particularly distressing for you who actually saw it happen. He was described as a young man of brilliant promise.'

'He was a creative scientist. Mair will confirm that if you're interested one way or the other. Of course, all good science is creative whatever the humanities try to tell you, but there are scientists who have this special vision, genius as opposed to talent, inspiration as well as the necessary patient conscientiousness. Someone, I forget who, described it rather well. Most of us edge forward, painfully advancing, yard by yard; they parachute behind enemy lines. He was young, only twenty-four. He could have become anything.'

Rickards thought, anything or nothing, like most of these young geniuses. Early death usually conferred a brief vicarious immortality. He'd never known a young DC I, accidentally killed, who wasn't at once proclaimed a potential Chief Constable. He asked: 'What exactly was he doing at the power station, what was his job?'

'Working with Mair on his PWR safety studies. Briefly, it's to do with the behaviour of the core in abnormal conditions. Toby never discussed it with me, probably because he knew I couldn't understand the complicated computer codes. I'm just a poor bloody engineer. Mair is due to publish the study before he leaves for his rumoured new job, no doubt under both their names and with a suitable acknowledgement to his collaborator. All that will last of Toby is his name under Mair's on a scientific paper.'

He sounded utterly weary and, looking towards the open door, made a half movement as if to get up, out of the claustrophobic little cabin and into the air. Then he said, his eyes still on the door: 'It's no use trying to explain Toby to you, you wouldn't understand. It would be a waste of your time and mine.'

'You seem very sure of that, Mr Lessingham.'

'I am sure, very sure. I can't explain why without being offensive. So why don't we keep it simple, stick to the facts. Look, he was an exceptional person. He was clever, he was kind, he was beautiful. If you find one of these qualities in a human being, you're lucky, if you find all three then you get someone rather special. I was in love with him. He knew because I told him. He wasn't in love with me and he wasn't gay. Not that it's any business of yours. I'm telling you because it was a fact and you're supposed to deal in facts, and because if you're determined to be interested in Toby you may as well get him right. And there's another reason. You're obviously grubbing about for all the dirt you can find. I'd rather you had facts from me than rumours from other people.'

Rickards said: 'So you didn't have a sexual relationship.'

Suddenly the air was rent with a wild screeching and there was a beating of white wings against the porthole. Outside someone must be feeding the seagulls.

Lessingham started up as if the sound was alien to him. Then he collapsed back in his seat and said with more weariness than anger: 'What the hell has that to do with Hilary Robarts's murder?'

'Possibly nothing at all, in which case the information will be kept private. But at this stage it's for me to decide what may or may not be relevant.'

'We spent one night together two weeks before he died. As I said, he was kind. It was the first and the last time.'

'Is that generally known?'

'We didn't broadcast it over local radio or write to the local paper or put up a notice in the staff canteen. Of course it wasn't generally known, why the hell should it be?'

'Would it have mattered if it had been? Would either of you have cared?'

'Yes, I would, we both would. I would care in the way you would care if your sex life was sniggered about in public. Of course we would have cared. After he died, it ceased to matter as far as I was concerned. There's this to be said for the death of a friend, it frees you from so much you thought was important.'

Frees you for what? thought Rickards. For murder, that iconoclastic act of protest and defiance, that single step across an unmarked, undefended frontier which, once taken, sets a man apart for ever from the rest of his kind? But he decided to defer the obvious question.

Instead he asked: 'What sort of family had he?' The question sounded innocuous and banal, as if they were casually discussing a common acquaintance.

'He had a father and a mother. That sort of family. What other sort is there?'

But Rickards had resolved on patience. It was not a ploy that came easily to him, but he could recognize pain when its taut and naked sinews were thrust so close to his face. He said mildly: 'I mean what sort of background did he come from? Had he brothers or sisters?'

'His father is a country parson. His mother is a country parson's wife. He was an only child. His death nearly destroyed them. If we could have made it look like an accident we would have. If lying could have helped, I would have lied. Why the hell didn't he drown himself? That way there would at least have been room for doubt. Is that what you meant by background?'

'It's helping to fill in the picture.' He paused and then, almost casually, asked the seminal question. 'Did Hilary Robarts know that you and Tobias Gledhill had spent a night together?'

'Whatever possible relevance…? All right, it's your job to do the scavenging. I know the system. You trawl up everything you can get your nets to and then throw away what you don't want. In the process you learn a lot of secrets you've no particular right to know and cause a lot of pain. Do you enjoy that? Is that what gives you your kicks?'

'Just answer the question, sir.'

'Yes, Hilary knew. She found out by one of those coincidences which seem a one in a million chance when they happen but which aren't really so remarkable or unusual in real life. She drove past my house when Toby and I were leaving just after 7.30 in the morning. She had taken a day's leave, apparently, and must have left home early to drive off somewhere. It's no use asking me where because I don't know. I suppose, like most other people, she has friends she visits from time to time. I mean, someone somewhere must have liked her.'

'Did she ever speak about the encounter, to you or to anyone else you know?'

'She didn't make it public property. I think she regarded it as too valuable a piece of information to cast before the swine. She liked power, and this was certainly power of a kind. As she drove past, she slowed down almost to walking pace and stared straight into my eyes. I can remember that look: amusement, changing to contempt, then triumph. We understood each other all right. But she never subsequently spoke a word to me.'

'Did she talk about it to Mr Gledhill?'

'Oh yes, she spoke to Toby all right. That's the reason he killed himself.'

'How do you know that she spoke to him? Did he tell you?'

'No.'

'You're suggesting that she blackmailed him?'

'I'm suggesting that he was unhappy, muddled, uncertain about every aspect of his life, his research, his future, his sexuality. I know that she attracted him sexually. He wanted her. She was one of those dominant, physically powerful women who do attract sensitive men like Toby. I think she knew that and she used it. I don't know when she got hold of him or what she said to him, but I'm bloody sure that he'd be alive now if it weren't for Hilary Robarts. And if that gives me a motive for her murder, you're damned right. But I didn't kill her and, that being so, you won't find any evidence that I did. Part of me, a very small part, is actually sorry that she's dead. I didn't like her and I don't think she was a happy woman, or even a particularly useful one. But she was healthy and intelligent and she was young. Death ought to be for the old, the sick and the tired. What I feel is a touch of lachrymae rerum. Even the death of an enemy diminishes us apparently, or so, in certain moods, it seems. But that doesn't mean I'd want her alive again. But it's possible I'm prejudiced, perhaps even unjust. When Toby was happy, no one was more joyous. When he was miserable he went down into his private hell. Perhaps she could reach him there, could help him. I know I couldn't. It's difficult to comfort a friend when you suspect that he sees it as a ploy to get him into your bed.'

Rickards said: 'You've been remarkably frank in suggesting a motive for yourself. But you haven't given us a single piece of concrete evidence to support your allegation that Hilary Robarts was in any way responsible for Toby Gledhill's death.'

Lessingham looked straight into his eyes and seemed to be considering, then he said: 'I've gone so far, I may as well tell you the rest. He spoke to me when he passed me on his way to death. He said, "Tell Hilary she doesn't have to worry any more. I've made my choice." The next time I saw him he was climbing the fuelling machine. He balanced on it for a second, then dived down on top of the reactor. He meant me to see him die, and I saw him die.'

Oliphant said: 'A symbolic sacrifice.'

'To the terrifying god of nuclear fission? I thought one of you might say that, Sergeant. That was the vulgar reaction. It's altogether too crude and histrionic. All he wanted, for God's sake, was the quickest way to break his neck.' He paused, seemed to consider, then went on: 'Suicide is an extraordinary phenomenon. The result is irrevocable. Extinction. The end of all choice. But the precipitating action often seems so commonplace. A minor setback, momentary depression, the state of the weather, even a poor dinner. Would Toby have died if he'd spent the previous night with me instead of alone? If he was alone.'

'Are you saying that he wasn't?'

'There was no evidence either way and now there will never be. But then the inquest was remarkable for the lack of evidence about anything. There were three witnesses, myself and two others, to the way he died. No one was near him, no one could have pushed him, it couldn't have been an accident. There was no evidence from me or anyone else about his state of mind. You could say that it was a scientifically conducted inquest. It stuck to the facts.'

Oliphant said quietly: 'And where do you think he spent the night before he died?' 'With her.' 'On what evidence?'

'None that would stand up in a court. Only that I rang him three times between nine and midnight and he didn't reply.'

'And you didn't tell that to the police or the coroner?'

'On the contrary. I was asked when I'd last seen him. That was in the canteen on the day before he died. I mentioned my telephone call, but no one regarded it as important. Why should they? What did it prove? He could have been out walking. He could have decided not to answer the phone. There was no mystery about how he died. And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get out of here and on with cleaning that bloody engine.'

They walked in silence back to the car. Rickards said: 'Arrogant bastard, isn't he? He made his view brutally plain. No point in trying to explain anything to the police. He can't say why without being offensive. You bet he can't. We're too thick, ignorant and insensitive to understand that a research scientist isn't necessarily an unimaginative technocrat, that you can be sorry a woman is dead without necessarily wishing her alive again, and that a sexually attractive boy might actually be prepared to go to bed with either sex.'

Oliphant said: 'He could have done it if he used the engine at full power. He'd have had to come ashore north of where she bathed and kept to the tide line, or we'd have seen his footprints. It was a thorough search, sir, at least a mile north and south. We identified Mr Dalgliesh's prints but, otherwise, the upper beach was clean.'

'Oh yes, he'd have kept pretty clear of the killing ground.

But he could have beached the inflatable dinghy on shingle without much problem. There are stretches which are practically all pebbled, or with narrow strips of sand which he could leap over.'

'What about the old beach defences, the hunks of concrete? It would be difficult to come close to shore anywhere north within easy walking distance without risking the boat.'

'He has risked the boat recently, hasn't he? There's this scrape along the bow. He can't prove that he made it on the water towers. Cool about it, too, wasn't he? Calmly admitted that if we'd been an hour later he'd have repaired it. Not that repainting would have done him much good, the evidence would still be there. All right, so he manages to manoeuvre the boat as close in shore as he can, say, a hundred yards north of where she was found, makes his way along the shingle and into the trees and waits quietly in their shadow. Or he could have loaded the folding bicycle into the dinghy and landed at a safer distance. He couldn't cycle along the beach at high tide, but he'd have been safe enough on the coast road if he cycled without a light. He gets back to the boat and berths her again at Blakeney, just catching the high tide. No trouble about the knife or the shoes, he drops them overboard. We'll get the boat examined, with his consent, of course, and I want a single-handed chap to make that journey. If we've got an experienced sailor among our chaps, use him. If not, get someone local and accompany him. We've got to time it to the minute. And we'd better make inquiries of the crab fishermen down Cromer way. Someone may have been out that night and seen his boat.'

Oliphant said: 'Obliging of him, sir, to hand us his motive on a plate.'

'So obliging that I can't help wondering whether it isn't a smokescreen for something he didn't tell us.'

But as Rickards fastened his seat belt another possibility occurred to him. Lessingham had said nothing about his relationship with Toby Gledhill until he had been questioned about the Bumble trainers. He must know – how could he fail to? – that these linked the murder even more strongly to the headlanders and, in particular, to the Old Rectory. Was his new openness with the police less a compulsion to confide than a deliberate ploy to divert suspicion from another suspect? And if so, which of the suspects, Rickards wondered, was most likely to evoke this eccentric act of chivalry?

On Thursday morning Dalgliesh drove to Lydsett to shop at the village store. His aunt had shopped locally for most of her main provisions and he continued the practice, partly he knew to assuage a nagging guilt about having a second home, however temporary. The villagers did not on the whole resent weekenders despite the fact that their cottages remained empty for most of the year and their contribution to village life was minimal, but preferred them not to arrive with their car boots loaded with provisions from Harrods or Fortnum and Mason.

And patronizing the Brysons in their corner shop entailed no particular sacrifice. It was an unpretentious village store with a clanging bell on the door which, as the sepia photographs of the Victorian village showed, had hardly altered externally in the last 120 years. Inside, however, the last four years had seen more changes than in the whole of its history. Whether because of the growth of holiday homes or the more sophisticated tastes of the villagers, it now offered fresh pasta, a variety of French as well as English cheeses, the more expensive brands of jams, marmalade and mustard, and a well-stocked delicatessen, while a notice proclaimed that fresh croissants were delivered daily.

As he drew up in the side street, Dalgliesh had to manoeuvre past an old and heavily built bicycle with a large wicker basket which was propped against the kerb, and as he entered he saw that Ryan Blaney was just completing his purchases. Mrs Bryson was ringing up and bagging three brown loaves, packets of sugar, cartons of milk and an assortment of tins. Blaney gave Dalgliesh a glance from his bloodshot eyes, a curt nod, and was gone. He was still without his van, thought Dalgliesh, watching him load his basket with the contents of one carrier and hang the other two on the handlebars. Mrs Bryson turned on Dalgliesh her welcoming smile but did not comment. She was too prudent a shopkeeper to get a reputation as a gossip or to become too openly involved in local controversies, but it seemed to Dalgliesh that the air was heavy with her unspoken sympathy for Blaney and he felt obscurely that, as a policeman, she held him partly responsible although he was unsure precisely why and for what. Rickards or his men must have questioned the villagers about the headlanders, Ryan Blaney in particular. Perhaps they had been less than tactful.

Five minutes later he stopped to open the gate barring entry to the headland. On the other side a tramp was sitting on the bank which separated the narrow road from the reed-enclosed dyke. He was bearded and wearing a checked tweed cap beneath which two neat plaits of strong grey hair bound with a rubber band fell almost to his shoulders. He was eating an apple, slicing it with a short-handled knife and throwing the sections into his mouth. His long legs, clad in thick corduroy trousers, were stretched out widely in front of him almost as if he were deliberately displaying a pair of black, white and grey trainers, their obvious newness in stark contrast to the rest of his clothes. Dalgliesh closed the gate then walked over to him and looked down into a pair of bright and intelligent eyes set in a drawn and weatherbeaten face. If this was a tramp, the keenness of that first glance, his air of confident self-sufficiency and the cleanliness of his white rather delicate hands made him an unusual one. But he was surely too encumbered to be a casual hiker. His khaki coat looked like army surplus and was bound with a wide leather belt from which was suspended by string an enamel mug, a small saucepan and a frying pan. A small, but tightly packed backpack lay on the verge beside him.

Dalgliesh said: 'Good morning. I'm sorry if I seem impertinent, but where did you get those shoes?'

The voice that answered him was educated, a little pedantic, a voice, he thought, that might have once belonged to a schoolmaster.

'You are not, I hope, about to claim ownership. I shall regret it if our acquaintanceship, although no doubt destined to be brief, should begin with a dispute about property.'

'No, they're not mine. I was wondering how long they've been yours.'

The man finished his apple. He threw the core over his shoulder into the ditch, cleaned the blade of his clasp knife on the grass, and pushed it with care deep into his pocket. He said: 'May I ask if this inquiry arrives from – forgive me – an inordinate and reprehensible curiosity, an unnatural suspicion of a fellow mortal, or a desire to purchase a similar pair for yourself. If the last, I am afraid I am unable to help you.'

'None of these things. But the inquiry is important. I'm not being either presumptuous or suspicious.'

'Nor, sir, are you being particularly candid or explicit. My name, incidentally, is Jonah.'

'Mine is Adam Dalgliesh.'

'Then, Adam Dalgliesh, give me one good reason why I should answer your question and you shall have an answer.'

Dalgliesh paused for a moment. There was, he supposed, a theoretical possibility that here before him was the murderer of Hilary Robarts, but he did not for a moment believe it. Rickards had telephoned him the previous evening to inform him that the Bumbles were no longer in the jumble chest, obviously feeling that he owed Dalgliesh this brief report. But that did not mean that the tramp had taken them, nor did it prove that the two pairs were the same. He said: 'On Sunday night a girl was strangled here on the beach. If you recently found, or were given, those shoes or were wearing them on the headland last Sunday the police will need to know. They have found a distinct footprint. It is important to identify it if only to eliminate the wearer from their inquiries.'

'Well, that at least is explicit. You talk like a policeman. I should be sorry to hear that you are one.'

'This isn't my case. But I am a policeman and I know that the local CID are looking for a pair of Bumble trainers.'

'And these, I take it, are Bumble trainers. I had thought of them as shoes.'

'They don't have a label except under the tongue. That's the firm's sales gimmick. Bumbles are supposed to be recognizable without a blatant display of the name. But if these are Bumbles there will be a yellow bee on each heel.'

Jonah didn't reply, but with a sudden vigorous movement swung both feet into the air, held them for a couple of seconds, then dropped them again.

Neither spoke for a few moments, then Jonah said: 'You are telling me that I now have on my feet the shoes of a murderer?'

'Possibly, but only possibly, these are the shoes he was wearing when the girl was killed. You see their importance?'

'I shall no doubt be made to see it, by you or another of your kind.'

'Have you heard of the Norfolk Whistler?'

'Is it a bird?'

'A mass murderer.'

'And these shoes are his?'

'He's dead. This latest killing was made to look as if he were responsible. Are you telling me you haven't even heard of him?'

'I sometimes see a newspaper when I need paper for other more earthy purposes. There are plenty to pick up from the waste bins. I seldom read them. They reinforce my conviction that the world is not for me. I seem to have missed your murdering Whistler.' He paused then added:

'What now am I expected to do? I take it that I am in your hands.'

Dalgliesh said: 'As I said, it isn't my case. I'm from the Metropolitan Police. But if you wouldn't mind coming home with me I could telephone the officer in charge. It isn't far. I live in Larksoken Mill on the headland. And if you care to exchange these trainers for a pair of my shoes, it seems the least I can offer. We're about the same height. There should be a pair to fit you.'

Jonah got to his feet with surprising agility. As they walked to the car Dalgliesh said: 'I've really no right to question you, but satisfy my curiosity. How did you come by them?'

'They were bestowed on me, inadvertently I might say, some time on Sunday night. I had arrived on the headland after dark and made my way to my usual night shelter in these parts. It's the half-buried concrete bunker near the cliff. A pillbox I think it's called. I expect you know it.'

'I know it. Not a particularly salubrious place to spend the night I should have thought.'

'I have known better certainly. But it has the advantage of privacy. The headland is off the usual route for fellow wayfarers. I usually visit once a year and stay for a day or two. The pillbox is completely weatherproof and as the slit window faces the sea I can light a small fire without fear of discovery. I push the rubbish to one side and ignore it. It is a policy I would recommend to you.'

'Did you go straight there?'

'No. As is my custom I called at the Old Rectory. The elderly couple who live there are usually very obliging in allowing me to use their tap. I wanted to fill up my water bottle. As it happens, there was no one at home. There were lights on in the lower windows but no one responded to the bell.'

'What time would this be, do you remember?' 'I have no watch and I take little account of time between sunset and sunrise. But I did notice that St Andrew's Church clock in the village showed 8.30 as I passed. I was probably at the Old Rectory by 9.15, or shortly afterwards.'

'What did you do then?'

'I knew that there was an outside tap close to the garage. I took the liberty of filling my bottle without permission. They would hardly, I think, begrudge me clean water.'

'Did you see a car?'

'There was one standing in the drive. The garage was open but, as I have said, I saw no human beings. I then went straight to the shelter. I was by then exceedingly tired. I drank some of the water, ate a crust of bread and some cheese and fell asleep. The shoes were thrown in through the door of the bunker some time during the night.'

Dalgliesh said: 'Thrown in rather than placed?'

'I imagine so. Anyone who actually entered the bunker must have seen me. It is surely more likely that they were thrown in. There is a wayside pulpit at a church in Ipswich. Last week it said: "God gives every bird his worm, but He does not throw it into the nest." On this occasion apparently He did.'

'And they hit you without waking you? They're heavy shoes.'

'As I have said, you talk like a policeman. I had walked twenty miles on the Sunday. I have an easy conscience and I sleep sound. If they had fallen on my face I have no doubt they would have wakened me. As it was, I found them next morning when I woke up.'

'Neatly placed?'

'Not at all. What happened was that I woke and turned over from my left side on to my back. I felt something hard beneath me and lit a match. The lump was one of the shoes. The other I found near my foot.'

'They weren't tied together?'

'Had they been tied, my dear sir, it would hardly have been possible for me to find one near the small of my back and the other at my feet.'

'And you weren't curious? After all, the trainers were practically new, hardly the kind of shoe anyone would chuck away.'

'Naturally I was curious. But unlike members of your profession I am not obsessed by the need to find explanations. It did not occur to me that I had a responsibility to find the owner or take the shoes in to the nearest police station. I doubt whether they would have thanked me for my trouble. I took gratefully what fate or God had provided. My old shoes were nearing the end of their usefulness. You will find them in the pillbox.'

'And you put on these.'

'Not immediately. They were too damp. I waited until they were dry.'

'Damp in parts or all over?'

'Damp all over. Someone had washed them very thoroughly, probably by holding them under a tap.' 'Or by walking into the sea.' 'I smelt them. It was not sea water.' 'Could you tell?'

'My dear sir, I have the use of my senses. My nose is particularly keen. I can tell the difference between sea and tap water. I can tell you what county I'm in by the smell of the earth.'

They had turned left at the crossroads, and the soaring white sails of the windmill were in sight. They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

Then Jonah said: 'You have, perhaps, a right to know what manner of man you are inviting under your roof. I am, sir, a modern remittance man. I know that, originally, my kind were banished to the colonies but they are a little more discriminating now and, in any case, banishment from the smells and colours of the English countryside would not have suited me. My brother, a model of civil rectitude and a prominent member of his local community, transfers one thousand pounds per annum from his bank account into mine, providing I never embarrass him by intruding on his presence. The interdict, I may say, extends to the town of which he is mayor but, since he and his fellow planners have long destroyed whatever character it once possessed, I have deleted it from my itinerary without regret. He is indefatigable in good works and you could say that I am among the recipients of his charity. He has been honoured by Her Majesty. An OBE, merely, but he has, I am sure, hope of higher things.'

Dalgliesh said: 'Your brother seems to be getting off rather lightly.'

'You yourself would willingly pay more to ensure my perpetual absence?'

'Not at all. It's just that I assume that the one thousand pounds is to enable you to keep yourself and I was wondering how you managed to do it. One thousand pounds as an annual bribe could be considered generous; as a living allowance it's surely inadequate.'

'To do him justice, my brother would willingly make an annual increase in line with the Retail Price Index. He has an almost obsessive sense of bureaucratic propriety. But I have told him that twenty pounds a week is more than adequate. I have no house, no rent, no rates, no heating, no lighting, no telephone, no car. I pollute neither my own body nor the environment. A man who cannot feed himself on nearly three pounds a day must either be lacking in initiative or be the slave of inordinate desires. An Indian peasant would regard it as luxury.'

'An Indian peasant would have less problem in keeping warm. The winters must be trying.'

'A hard winter is, indeed, a discipline in endurance. Not that I complain. I am always healthiest in winter. And matches are cheap. I have never learned those boy scout tricks with a magnifying glass and rubbed sticks. Happily I know half a dozen farmers who are willing to let me sleep in their barns. They know that I don't smoke, that I am tidy, that I shall be gone by the morning. But one should never trespass on kindness. Human kindness is like a defective tap, the first gush may be impressive but the stream soon dries up. I have my annual routine and that, too, reassures them. In a farmhouse twenty miles north of here they will be saying soon, "Isn't this the time of year that Jonah drops in?" They greet me with relief rather than tolerance. If I am still alive then so are they. And I never beg. An offer to pay is far more efficacious. "Could you sell me a couple of eggs and half a pint of milk", spoken at the farm door – provided the cash is proffered -will usually produce six eggs and a full pint. Not necessarily of the freshest, but one must not expect too much of human generosity.'

Dalgliesh said: 'What about books?'

'Ah there, sir, you have hit on a difficulty. Classics I can read in public libraries, although it is sometimes a little irritating to have to break off when it is time to move on. Otherwise I rely on second-hand paperbacks from market stalls. One or two stall-holders allow you to exchange the book or get your money back at the second visit. It is a remarkably cheap form of public lending library. As for clothes, there are jumble sales, Oxfam and those useful shops that deal in army surplus. I save from my allowance for a new ex-army winter coat every three years.'

Dalgliesh said: 'How long have you been living this life?'

'Nearly twenty years now, sir. Most tramps are pitiful because they are the slaves of their own passions, usually drink. A man who is free of all human desires except to eat, sleep and walk is truly free.'

Dalgliesh said: 'Not entirely. You have a bank account apparently, and you rely on that thousand pounds.'

'True. You think I would be freer if I didn't take it?'

'More independent, perhaps. You might have to work.'

'I cannot work, to beg I am ashamed. Luckily the Lord has tempered the wind to his shorn lamb. I should be sorry to do my brother out of the satisfaction of his benevolence. True, I have a bank account to receive my annual subsidy and to that extent I conform. But since my income depends on my separation from my brother it would hardly be possible to receive the money personally and my cheque book and accompanying plastic card have a most gratifying effect on the police when, as occasionally happens, they take a presumptuous interest in my doings. I had no idea that a plastic card was such a guarantee of respectability.'

Dalgliesh asked: 'No luxuries? No other needs? Drink? Women?'

'If by women you mean sex then the answer is no. I am escaping, sir, from drink and sex.'

'Then you are on the run from something. I could argue that a man on the run is never entirely free.'

'And I could ask you, sir, from what you are escaping on this isolated headland. If from the violence of your job you have been singularly unlucky.'

'And now that same violence has touched your life. I'm sorry.'

'You needn't be. A man who lives with nature is used to violence and is companionable with death. There is more violence in an English hedgerow than in the meanest streets of a great city.'

When they reached the mill Dalgliesh telephoned Rickards. He wasn't at the incident room but Oliphant was and said that he would immediately drive over. Then Dalgliesh took Jonah upstairs to look over the half-dozen pairs of shoes he had with him at the mill. There was no problem over fit but Jonah tried them all on and examined each shoe minutely before making his choice. Dalgliesh was tempted to say that a life of simplicity and self-abnegation hadn't spoilt his guest's eye for good leather. He saw, with some regret, his favourite and most expensive pair chosen.

Jonah walked up and down the bedroom looking down at his feet with complacency. He said: 'I seem to have the best of the bargain. The Bumbles came at an opportune time but they were hardly suitable for serious walking and I intended to replace them as opportunity offered. The rules of the road are few and simple but they are imperative. I commend them to you. Keep your bowels open; bath once a week; wear wool or cotton next to the skin and leather on the feet.'

Fifteen minutes later his guest was ensconced in an armchair, a mug of coffee in hand, still regarding his feet with satisfaction. Oliphant was prompt in arriving. Apart from his driver he was alone. He came into the sitting room bringing with him an aura of masculine menace and authority. Even before Dalgliesh had made the introduction he said to Jonah: 'You must have known you'd no right to those trainers. They're new. Ever heard of stealing by finding?'

Dalgliesh said: 'A moment, Sergeant.' Drawing Oliphant aside he said in a low voice: 'You'll treat Mr Jonah with courtesy.' And before Oliphant could protest, he added, 'All right, I'll save you the trouble of saying it. This isn't my case. But he is a guest in my house. If your men had searched the headland more thoroughly on Monday all three of us might have been saved some embarrassment.'

'He has to be a serious suspect, sir. He's got the shoes.'

Dalgliesh said: 'He also has a knife and he admits to having been on the headland on Sunday night. Treat him as a serious suspect by all means if you can find a motive or proof that he knew how the Whistler killed or even knew that he existed. But why not listen to his story before you jump to conclusions about his guilt?'

Oliphant said: 'Guilty or not, Mr Dalgliesh, he's an important witness. I don't see how we can allow him to go wandering off.'

'And I don't see how, legally, you can prevent him. But that's your problem, Sergeant.'

A few minutes later Oliphant was leading Jonah towards the car. Dalgliesh went out to see him off. Before climbing in at the back, Jonah turned to him.

'It was an ill day for me when I met you, Adam Dalgliesh.'

'But a good day, perhaps, for justice.'

'Oh, justice. Is that the business you're in? I think you may have left it rather late. This planet earth is hurtling now to its destruction. That concrete bastion on the edge of a polluted sea may bring about the final darkness. If not it will be by some other folly of man. There comes a time when every scientist, even God, has to write off an experiment. Ah, I see a certain relief on your face. You are thinking, So he is mad after all, this peculiar tramp. I need no longer take him seriously.'

Dalgliesh said: 'My mind agrees with you. My genes are more optimistic'

'You know it. We all know it. How else can one explain the modern sickness of man. And when the final darkness falls I shall die as I have lived, in the nearest dry ditch.' And then he gave a singularly sweet smile and added: 'Wearing your shoes, Adam Dalgliesh.'

The encounter with Jonah had left Dalgliesh curiously restless. There were plenty of jobs to be done in the mill but he felt disinclined to tackle any of them. His instinct was to get into the Jaguar and drive very fast and very far. But he had tried that expedient too often to have any faith in its efficacy. The mill would still be standing when he returned, the problems still unsolved. He had no difficulty in recognizing the basis of his discontent; the frustrating involvement with a case which would never be his yet from which it was impossible to distance himself. He remembered some words of Rickards spoken before they had finally parted on the night of the murder.

'You may not want to be involved, Mr Dalgliesh, but you are involved. You may wish that you had never been near the body, but you were there.'

He seemed to remember using much the same words to a suspect in one of his own cases. He was beginning to understand why they had been so ill received. On an impulse he unlocked the mill and climbed up the ladders to the top storey. Here, he suspected, his aunt had found her peace. Perhaps some of that lost contentment might seep into him. But any hope of being left undisturbed was due to be frustrated.

As he looked over the headland from the southern window a bicycle came into sight. At first it was too distant to see who was riding but then he recognized Neil Pascoe. They had never spoken but, like all the headlanders, they knew each other by sight. Pascoe seemed to be cycling with a ponderous determination, his head low over the handlebars, his shoulders working. But as he came close to the mill he suddenly stopped, put both feet on the ground, stared towards the mill as if seeing it for the first time, then dismounted and began wheeling the bicycle over the rough scrubland.

For one second Dalgliesh was tempted to pretend that he wasn't home. Then he realized that the Jaguar was parked at the side of the mill and that it was possible that Pascoe in that long stare had glimpsed his face at the window. Whatever the purpose of this visit it looked as if it were one he couldn't avoid. He moved over to the window above the door, opened it and called down: 'Are you looking for me?'

The question was rhetorical. Who else would Pascoe expect to find at Larksoken Mill? Looking down at the upturned face, the thin jutting beard, Dalgliesh saw him curiously diminished and foreshortened, a vulnerable rather pathetic figure clutching his bicycle as if for protection.

Pascoe shouted up against the wind: 'Could I talk to you?'

An honest reply would have been 'If you must', but it was not one that Dalgliesh felt he could shout down against the noise of the wind without sounding ungracious. He mouthed 'I'll be down.'

Pascoe propped the machine against the wall of the mill and followed him into the sitting room.

He said: 'We haven't actually met but I expect you've heard of me. I'm Neil Pascoe from the caravan. I'm sorry if I'm butting in when you want some peace.' He sounded as embarrassed as a door-to-door salesman trying to reassure a prospective customer that he wasn't a con man.

Dalgliesh was tempted to say, 'I might want some peace but it doesn't look as if I'm likely to get it.' He asked: 'Coffee?'

Pascoe gave the predictable reply: 'If it isn't too much trouble.'

'No trouble. I was thinking of making it.' Pascoe followed him into the kitchen and stood leaning against the door post in an unconvincing assumption of ease as Dalgliesh ground the coffee beans'and put on the kettle. It struck him that he had spent a considerable time since his arrival at the mill providing food and drink for uninvited visitors. When the grinding had ceased, Pascoe said almost truculently: 'I need to talk to you.'

'If it's about the murder then you ought to be speaking to Chief Inspector Rickards not me. This isn't my case.'

'But you found the body.'

'That might in certain circumstances make me a suspect. But it doesn't give me the right to interfere professionally in another officer's case outside my own force area. I'm not the investigating officer. But you know that, you're not stupid.'

Pascoe kept his eyes on the bubbling liquid. He said: 'I didn't expect you to be particularly pleased to see me. I wouldn't have come if there were anyone else I could talk to. There are things I can't discuss with Amy.'

'As long as you remember whom you are talking to.'

'A policeman. It's like the priesthood, is it? Never off duty. Once a priest always a priest.'

'It isn't in the least like the priesthood. No guarantee of confidentiality in the confessional and no absolution. That's what I'm trying to tell you.'

They said nothing else until the coffee had been poured into the two mugs and carried by Dalgliesh into the sitting room. They sat, one each side of the fireplace. Pascoe took his mug but seemed uncertain what to do with it. He sat twisting it in his hands, looking down at the coffee, making no attempt to drink. After a moment he said: 'It's about Toby Gledhill, the boy – well, he was a boy really – who killed himself at the power station.'

Dalgliesh said: 'I've heard about Toby Gledhill.'

'Then I expect you know how he died. He hurled himself down on top of the reactor and broke his neck. That was on Friday the twelfth of August. Two days before, on the Wednesday, he came to see me at about eight o'clock in the evening. I was on my own in the caravan, Amy had taken the van into Norwich to shop and said she wanted to see a film and would be back late. I was looking after Timmy. Then there was this knock and there he stood. I knew him, of course. At least, I knew who he was. I'd seen him on one or two of those open days at the power station. I usually make time to go to those. They can't stop me, and it gives me an opportunity of putting one or two awkward questions, countering their propaganda. And I think he was present at some of the meetings of the new pressurized water reactor inquiry. But, of course, I'd never really met him. I couldn't think what he wanted of me, but I invited him in and offered him a beer. I'd lit the stove because there were a lot of Timmy's clothes which needed drying so the caravan was very hot and rather damp. When I remember that night I seem to see him through a haze of steam. After the beer he asked if we couldn't go out. He seemed restless as if he found the caravan claustrophobic and he asked more than once when Amy was expected back. So I lifted Timmy out of his cot and put him into the backpack and we set off to walk north along the shore. It was when we had got as far as the abbey ruins that he told me what he'd come to say. He came out with it quite baldly, without any preamble. He'd come to the conclusion that nuclear power was too dangerous to use and that, until we've solved the problem of radioactive waste, we ought not to build any more nuclear power stations. There was one rather odd expression he used. He said: "It's not only dangerous, it's corrupting."' Dalgliesh asked: 'Did he say why he'd come to this conclusion?'

'I think it had been building up for quite a few months, and Chernobyl had probably brought it to a head. He said that something else had recently happened that had helped to make up his mind. He didn't say what but he promised he would tell me when he'd had more time to think. I asked him if he was merely going to give up his job and opt out or whether he was prepared to help us. He said he thought that he had to help. It wouldn't be enough just to resign his job. It was difficult for him and I could see just how difficult. He admired and liked his colleagues. He said they were dedicated scientists and very intelligent men who believed in what they were doing. It was just that he couldn't believe any more. He hadn't thought about the way ahead, not very clearly anyway. He was like I am now; he just needed to talk it through. I suppose I seemed to be the natural person. He knew about PANUP of course.' He looked up at Dalgliesh and said rather naively: 'That stands for People Against Nuclear Power. When the proposal was put forward for the new reactor here I formed a little local group to oppose it. I mean a group of ordinary concerned local residents, not the more powerful national protest bodies. It hasn't been easy. Most people try to pretend that the power station isn't really there. And of course quite a number welcome it because it does bring in some employment, new customers for the shops and pubs. Most of the opposition to the new reactor wasn't local, anyway, it was people from CND, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Of course we welcomed them. They're the ones with the heavy guns. But I thought it important to get something going locally and I suppose I'm not really a joiner. I like to do my own thing.'

Dalgliesh said: 'And Gledhill would have been quite a catch for you.' The words were almost brutal in their implication.

Pascoe flushed then looked him in the eyes. 'There was that too. I suppose I realized it at the time. I wasn't entirely disinterested. I mean, I did know how important it would be if he came over. But I was, well, flattered I suppose that he'd come first to me. PANUP hasn't made much impact, really. Even the initials were a mistake. I wanted something that people would easily remember, but PANUP – a bit of a laugh. I can guess what you're thinking, that I might have done more good for the cause by joining an existing pressure group instead of ministering to my own ego. You'd be right.'

Dalgliesh asked: 'Did Gledhill say whether he'd spoken to anyone at the station?'

'He said that he hadn't, not yet. I think that was what he most dreaded. He particularly hated the thought of telling Miles Lessingham. While we walked along the beach with Timmy half asleep bumping on my back he felt free to talk and I think he found it a release. He told me that Lessingham was in love with him. He wasn't gay himself but he was ambivalent. But he did tremendously admire Lessingham and felt that in some way he was letting him down. He gave the impression that everything was a muddle, his feelings about atomic power, his personal life, his career, everything.'

Suddenly Pascoe seemed to realize that he was holding his coffee mug and, lowering his head, began to drink from it with great slurps, like a man desperate with thirst. When the mug was drained he put it down on the floor and wiped his mouth with his hand.

He said: 'It was a warm night after a rainy day, the night of the new moon. Funny how I remember that. We were walking just above the tide mark on the shingle. And then, suddenly, there she was, Hilary Robarts, splashing out of the foam. She was only wearing the bottom half of her bikini and she stood there for a moment with the water running off her hair, glistening in that eerie light which seems to come off the sea on a starry night. Then she came slowly up the beach towards us. I suppose we stood there almost as if mesmerized. She had lit a small fire of brushwood on the shingle and the three of us moved towards it. She picked up her towel but didn't wrap it round her. She looked – well, she looked marvellous, the drops of water glistening on her skin and that locket thing she wears resting between her breasts. I know it sounds ridiculous and, well, corny, but she looked like some goddess risen from the sea. She took absolutely no notice of me but she looked at Toby. She said: "Nice to see you, Toby. Why not come down to the cottage for a drink and a meal?" Such ordinary words. Harmless sounding words. But they weren't.

'I don't think he could resist her. I don't suppose I would have been able to either. Not at that moment. And I knew exactly what she was doing, and so did she. She was asking him to make a choice. On my side nothing but trouble, a lost job, personal anguish, possibly even disgrace. And on hers security, professional success, the respect of peers, colleagues. And love. I think she was offering him love. I knew what would happen in the cottage if he went with her and he knew too. But he went. He didn't even say goodnight to me. She slung her towel over her shoulder and turned her back on us as if absolutely confident that he would follow her. And he did follow her. And two days later, on Friday the twelfth of August, he killed himself. I don't know what she said to him. No one will know now. But after that meeting I think he just couldn't take any more. It was not what she threatened him with, or even if she threatened him at all. But if it hadn't been for that meeting on the beach I think he'd be alive now. She killed him.'

Dalgliesh said: 'None of this came out at the inquest?'

'No, none. There was no reason why it should. I wasn't called as a witness. It was all handled very discreetly. Alex Mair was anxious that there shouldn't be any publicity. As^ you've probably noticed, there hardly ever is when something goes wrong at an atomic power station. They all become experts at the cover-up.'

'And why are you telling me this?'

'I want to be sure that this is something Rickards needs to be told. But I suppose I'm really telling you because I need to share it with someone. I'm not sure why I picked on you. Sorry.'

A true, if hardly kind, reply would have been: 'You picked on me in the hope that I'd undertake to pass it on to Rickards and save you the responsibility.' Instead Dalgliesh said: 'You realize, of course, that this is information Chief Inspector Rickards should have.'

'But is it? That's what I want to be sure of. I suppose it's the usual fear when dealing with the police. What use are they going to make of it? Are they going to get the wrong idea? Could it point to someone who could be innocent? I suppose you have to have confidence in the integrity of the police, you wouldn't go on being a detective if you hadn't. But the rest of us know that things can go wrong, that the innocent can be harried, the guilty get off, that the police aren't always as scrupulous as they pretend to be. I'm not asking you to tell him for me, I'm not that childish. But I don't really see how it's relevant. Both of them are dead. I can't see how telling Rickards about that meeting can help to catch Miss Robarts's killer. And it can't bring either of them back to life.'

Dalgliesh refilled Pascoe's mug. Then he said: 'Of course it's relevant. You're suggesting that Hilary Robarts might have blackmailed Gledhill into staying in his job. If she could do it to one person she could do it to another. Anything about Miss Robarts could be relevant to her death. And don't worry too much about innocent suspects. I'm not going to pretend that the innocent don't suffer in a murder investigation. Of course they do. No one even remotely touched by murder goes unscathed. But Chief Inspector Rickards isn't a fool and he's an honest man. He's only going to use what is relevant to his inquiry and it's for him to decide what is relevant and what isn't.'

'I suppose that's the reassurance I wanted to hear. All right, I'll tell him.'

He finished his coffee very quickly as if anxious to be gone and, with only a final word of goodbye, mounted his bicycle and pedalled furiously down the path, bending himself against the wind. Dalgliesh took the two mugs back into the kitchen thoughtfully. That verbal picture of Hilary Robarts rising like a glistening goddess from the waves had been remarkably vivid. But one detail had been wrong. Pascoe had spoken of the key locket resting between her breasts. He remembered Mair's words as he stood looking down at the body. 'That locket round her neck. I gave it to her on August the twenty-ninth for her birthday.' On Wednesday 10 August Hilary Robarts couldn't have been wearing it. Pascoe had undoubtedly seen Hilary Robarts walking out of the sea with the locket resting between her naked breasts; but it couldn't have been on 10 August.