‘This isn’t over, Martin.’ I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. ‘The truth will come out.’

‘Goodbye, Susan.’

I went. To be honest, I couldn’t wait to get away.

*

Had Martin just confessed to the murder of Frank Parris? ‘I killed my brother-in-law because I didn’t want to have to sell the house.’ He had spelled it out for me and in truth it was exactly what I had been thinking. From what I had discovered so far, and working on the assumption that Stefan Codrescu was innocent, nobody else had any motive to kill Frank Parris. No one at the hotel had even known who he was. But Martin and Joanne had a bona fide reason that they had done their best to keep hidden from me. What was more, Martin had lied about the marquee and when I had challenged him just now he hadn’t even tried to think up a reasonable explanation. He and his wife had both threatened me in different ways. It was almost as if they wanted me to know what they had done.

I got into my car and drove slowly out of Westleton until I found the house I was looking for – about a mile down the road. It was called The Brambles, a tiny, pink Suffolk cottage that looked as if it had been there for ever, standing on its own next to a farm, separated from it by a low wooden fence.

It was exactly the sort of house I would have expected Derek Endicott, the night manager, to live in. He had told me he lived close to Westleton and I had got the address from Inga before I left the hotel. It had probably belonged to the same family for generations. The clues were there in the old-fashioned television aerial on the roof, the outside toilet that hadn’t been torn down or converted, the glass in the windows that had trapped the dust of centuries. The doorbell might have been added in the sixties. When I rang, it chimed out a tune.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door was opened by a very old woman wearing a loose-fitting floral dress – it was actually more of a smock – and supporting herself on a walking frame. Her hair was grey and tangled and she had hearing aids behind both ears. Lawrence had told me that Derek’s mother was ill but I must say that on first appearance she looked quite sprightly and alert.

‘Yes?’ she asked. She had a strained, high-pitched voice that reminded me a little of her son.

‘Are you Mrs Endicott?’

‘Yes. Who are you?’

‘My name is Susan Ryeland. I’m from Branlow Hall.’

‘Are you here for Derek? He’s still in bed.’

‘I can come back later.’

‘No. Come in. Come in. The doorbell will have woken him up. It was almost time for his lunch anyway.’

She turned her back on me and, leaning on the walking frame, edged herself into the single room that made up much of the ground floor. It was both a kitchen and a living room, the two jumbled together haphazardly. All the furniture was antique but not in a good way. The sofa sagged, the oak table was scarred, the kitchen equipment was out of date. The only nod to the twenty-first century was a widescreen TV, which perched uncomfortably on an ugly, fake wooden stand in the corner.

And yet, for all that, it was a cosy place. I couldn’t help but notice that there were two of everything: two cushions on the sofa, two armchairs, two wooden chairs at the table, two rings on the hob.

Mrs Endicott lowered herself heavily onto one of the armchairs. ‘Who did you say you were?’

‘Susan Ryeland. Mrs Endicott … ’

‘Call me Gwyneth.’

She had become Phyllis in Alan Conway’s book but I could already see that the two women had almost nothing in common. I wondered if Alan had come here. I doubted it.

‘I don’t want to be in your way if you’re about to have lunch.’

‘You’re not in the way, dear. It’s only soup and shepherd’s pie. You can join us if you like.’ She paused to catch her breath and I heard a painful wheezing as the air entered her throat. At the same time, she reached down and for the first time I saw the oxygen cylinder that had been concealed beside the chair. She held a plastic suction cap to her mouth and breathed several times. ‘I’ve got the emphysema,’ she explained, when she had finished. ‘It’s my own silly fault. Thirty cigarettes a day all my life and it’s finally caught up with me. Do you smoke, dear?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Who is it, Ma?’

I heard Derek’s voice before I saw him. A door opened and he came in, wearing tracksuit bottoms and a jersey that was a little too small for him. He was obviously surprised to see me sitting there, but unlike Joanne Williams he didn’t seem put out.

‘Mrs Ryeland!’

I was quite impressed that he remembered my name. ‘Hello, Derek,’ I said.

‘Have you got news?’

‘About Cecily? I’m afraid not.’

‘Mrs Ryeland is helping the police find Cecily,’ he told his mother.

‘That’s a terrible business,’ Gwyneth said. ‘She’s a very nice young woman. And a mother too! I hope they find her.’

‘She’s the reason why I’m here, Derek. Would you mind if I asked you a couple more questions?’

He sat down at the table. There was only just enough room for his stomach. ‘I’d be happy to help.’

‘It’s just that there was something you said when we met at the hotel.’ I continued carefully, making it easier for him. ‘Cecily had read a book that had upset her. And about two weeks ago – it was a Tuesday, about the same sort of time as now – she rang her parents in the South of France to talk about it. She said there was something in the book that suggested Stefan Codrescu might not have killed Frank Parris after all.’

‘I liked Stefan,’ Derek said.

‘Did I meet him?’ Gwyneth asked.

‘No, Ma. He never came here.’

‘When I was talking to you about Cecily, you said something to me. ‘I knew something was wrong when she made that phone call.’ Were you talking about the same phone call, Derek? The one she made to her parents?’

He had to think about that, untangling his memories of what had happened and also their possible implications for him. ‘She did phone her parents,’ he said, finally. ‘I was at the reception desk and she was in the office. I didn’t listen to what she said, though. I mean … I didn’t mean to.’

‘But you knew she was upset.’

‘She said he didn’t do it. She said they’d got it all wrong. The door doesn’t shut properly so I could hear some of it through the crack.’

‘Why were you at the hotel, Derek? It was midday. I thought you only worked nights.’

‘Sometimes, if Mum’s had a bad week, I switch over with Lars. Mr Treherne is very kind like that. I can’t leave her alone all night.’

‘It’s the emphysema,’ Gwyneth reminded me. She smiled at her son. ‘He looks after me.’

‘So you were there during the day. Was anyone else nearby when Cecily made the call?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Well, there were guests. The hotel was quite busy.’

‘Was Aiden MacNeil there? Or Lisa?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. Then his eyes brightened. ‘I saw the nanny!’

‘Eloise?’

‘She was looking for Cecily and I told her she was in the office.’

‘Did she go in?’

‘No. She could hear Cecily talking on the phone and she didn’t want me to disturb her so she asked me to say she’d been looking for her and went off.’

‘Did you talk to Cecily?’

‘No. After she finished the phone call, she came out of the office and I don’t know where she went. You’re right that she was upset. I think she’d been crying.’ His face fell as he said that, as if it was somehow his fault.

‘Did you tell the police all this?’ Gwyneth asked.

‘No, Ma. The police didn’t ask.’

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable, trapped in this small room between the invalid mother and her son. I felt a spurt of anger towards Alan Conway for manipulating them, turning them into caricatures in his book – but at the same time I knew that I had been complicit. I could have been more critical of Derek Chandler with his club foot and his schoolboy perversion, but I had gone ahead and published. And I hadn’t complained when the book became a bestseller.

There was something else I had to ask. I didn’t particularly want to do this either. ‘Derek,’ I began. ‘Why were you upset on the day before the wedding?’

‘I wasn’t upset. There was a party for the staff. I didn’t go but everyone looked as if they were having fun and that made me happy too.’

That wasn’t what Lawrence Treherne had told me. In the lengthy statement he had written, he had mentioned that Derek had been in a strange mood, ‘as if he’d seen a ghost’.

‘Was there someone who’d come to the hotel who you recognised?’

‘No.’ He was scared. He knew that I knew.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I don’t remember … ’