‘I don’t want to spoil the evening by talking shop,’ Hare said. ‘But I’ve got to ask. Do you have any thoughts after today?’

‘I have many thoughts and I must tell you that the witness statements with which you provided me were excellent. Your interviews could not have been clearer or more efficient.’

Hare was pleased. ‘I still don’t know who did it,’ he said.

‘But you have your suspicions.’

‘I have.’ Hare was aware that Pünd had turned his own question on him but he went on anyway. ‘There were quite a few people who would have liked to have seen Miss James out of the way, starting with the proprietors of this very establishment. You saw that she had been in contact with an accountancy firm in London?’

‘You did well to discover it.’

‘Well, I checked every telephone number she’d called in the last few weeks. She was about to engage a company from London to carry out a complete audit. The Gardners may not have been too happy about that, even if killing her to prevent it might have been a bit extreme.

‘And then there’s that butler of hers. I didn’t believe a word his mother told us when we spoke to them in the kitchen, and looking at him sitting at that table, well … frankly … there’s something about him that gives me the creeps. That producer, Cox, heard them arguing on the night of the crime and loudly enough for the sound to carry onto the front lawn. I’ll bet you anything you like that he’s up to no good.’

‘What of Mr Cox himself?’

‘Sīmanis ?aks, you mean! He could certainly have been the stranger at the door, the one who set the dog barking. He told me a string of lies and if Melissa James had pulled out of his film, more or less ruining him in the process, he could well have decided he wanted revenge.’

‘Revenge … the oldest of motives. One finds it in the dramas of ancient Greece.’

‘But if I was going to put my money on one person, it would still be the husband.’

‘Ah yes! Francis Pendleton.’

‘Thwarted love can be as destructive as revenge. From what I understand, he was besotted with her. Suppose he’d discovered that she was having an affair! You talk about classical drama, but that’s William Shakespeare all over again. I’m sure you’ve read Othello. Desdemona gets strangled too.’

‘That is interesting. It was also my impression that he was the most likely suspect.’

‘He was certainly the last person to see her alive and we only have his word for it that he left when he said he did.’

‘The car had gone.’

‘He could have driven away and come back again. Let’s not forget that the Chandlers heard someone come through the door.’

‘But if it had been Francis Pendleton, would the dog have barked?’

‘That’s a good point.’

‘There is also the matter of the murder weapon.’

‘The telephone cord.’

‘I have to say that it puzzled me.’

‘You mean, why not just use his hands?’

Pünd shook his head. ‘No. That is not what I mean. I will tell you this. For me, the telephone makes it less likely that Francis Pendleton killed his wife. Less likely, but not impossible. Were you able to confirm that he did indeed attend the performance of The Marriage of Figaro that night?’

‘We’ve asked at the theatre. But there were four hundred people in the audience. We have no way of knowing who they were.’

‘You might ask if anyone arrived late. Or if there was anyone in the audience who seemed distracted.’

‘That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.’ Hare drank some wine. At home, he might occasionally have a glass of beer with his evening meal and this was a rare treat. ‘You may have noticed that he told me how much he enjoyed the performance.’

‘I did indeed read that in your excellent notes.’

‘He could have been lying, of course. But it’s not the behaviour of someone who has just strangled his wife.’

Pünd raised his own glass and drank with half-closed eyes. ‘It is true what Miss Cain observed, is it not,’ he said. ‘How sad it is that even in a place as quiet and as charming as Tawleigh-on-the-Water, there are still so many people who might be capable of murder.’

Outside, the waves broke, black against the pebbled shore.

II

Inside the lighthouse, the two children – Mark and Agnes Collins – had not yet gone to sleep. They were much too excited, lying in twin bunks in a room that was completely circular, halfway up the tower. Every time the beam swung round, it flashed past the two small windows, making the shadows leap. It was like being inside an adventure story.

In fact, the room had once been an office. Brenda Mitchell, Nancy’s mother, had put the bunks in so that any children who came to stay could have the magical experience of sleeping inside a real lighthouse. She herself, her husband and Nancy had their beds on the ground floor in a much less interesting building that had been tacked on to the side. This was where the kitchen, living room and small bathroom were also located; the mother, father and daughter were confined in a space that could quite accurately be called too close for comfort.

Nancy Mitchell had read a few pages of the Narnia book that Mark had brought with him and now she smoothed the covers of the two bunks and turned out the lights, leaving a single lamp glowing on the floor. In just six months’ time this room might be needed for a quite different reason. There would be a third child, and this one would be her own. A boy or a girl? She hadn’t dared ask Dr Collins and anyway, she doubted that he would be able to tell.

She made her way down the winding stairway and through the door that led into the kitchen. Her father was sitting at the table, her mother stirring something at the stove. It was stew again. Brenda would have got the scrag-ends from the butcher, who always threw in a few bones at no extra cost so that they could make stock. All three of them had jobs but somehow they never seemed to have enough money to go round. Both women were forced to give their earnings to Bill Mitchell and he parcelled them out to them for housekeeping and all the other expenses. The trouble was that what he returned to them was always substantially less than what they had given.

Nancy thought of the sixty pounds she had received and which she had hidden inside the cover of her pillow. She had almost no private space in the lighthouse and she was too worried that her mother, who did all the washing, might come upon it accidentally if she left it with her clothes.

‘How are the children, Nancy?’ Brenda asked.

‘They’re still not asleep, Mum. I read to them and tucked them in, but they just wanted to look out of the window.’

‘You should charge.’ Bill Mitchell was a man of few words. He very seldom used more than three or four of them at the same time.

‘What do you mean?’ Brenda asked.

‘Dr Collins and his missus.’

‘Mrs Collins has always been very good to me. And they do pay me extra for babysitting.’

‘They can afford it.’

Brenda Mitchell transferred the stew to the table and reached for three plates. ‘Come and sit down, Nancy.’ She stopped, examining her daughter. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Mum. I’m fine.’

‘You look tired. And there’s something else … ’

Her mother knew. Or if she didn’t know, she was suspicious and she would work it out soon enough. And of course she would tell her father. Brenda would be too afraid to keep that sort of thing from him, and even if Nancy begged her to stay silent it would be obvious soon anyway. When that happened, all hell would break loose. When you crossed Bill Mitchell, you soon knew about it. Nancy had lost count of the number of times she had seen her mother with dark bruises on her back or her arms – and she had felt the back of his hand occasionally too.

But she had made her plan. Everything was ready. As she lifted a plate to pass her father’s dinner across, she realised she couldn’t wait another day.

She would do it tomorrow.

III

In their London hotel, Leonard Collins and his wife were unable to eat a single mouthful. And it wasn’t just because the food – rissoles, stewed carrots and mashed potatoes – was cold and unappetising.