Martin stood up. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this,’ he said.

‘Yes, you are, Martin. Because you actually tried to kill me! I saw you yesterday, sneaking away from Branlow Hall. Maybe you wanted me to see you, but I know it was you who dropped the stone owl off the roof. The trouble for you is that I’ve also got proof.’ That stopped him in his tracks. ‘When you called the hotel to get me out of the door you were already up there, in position. You waited for me to come out and then you pushed it off the ledge.’ I turned to Joanne. ‘Did he tell you what had happened?’

‘He said he’d heard about it … ’ Joanne was staring at her husband in a way that made this whole visit worthwhile.

‘Did he also tell you that he was recorded going in on CCTV and that the hotel switchboard can trace the call he made, that the number was logged? And did he mention if he was wearing gloves or not? Because the police are examining the fire door on the roof and the fragments of stone.’

This wasn’t true. The police weren’t actually involved. But they could well have been.

The colour had drained out of Martin’s face.

‘Tell me this one thing, Martin. While I’m in a slightly forgiving mood. Just reassure me that you weren’t really trying to kill me and that you actually intended for me to see you sneaking away from the hotel. All you wanted was to frighten me, to make me think you were a threat. Because that was part of the game you were playing with your wife. Martin the killer! Martin the real man! You didn’t kill Frank and you didn’t try to kill me. That was just an image you were trying to project.’

There was a long pause but then at last it came, exactly what I wanted, though only a whisper. ‘Yes.’

‘Was that a yes, Martin?’

‘Yes!’ Louder this time.

‘Thank you. That’s all I need to know.’

I got up and walked out of the house with Andreas at my side. We hadn’t made it to the garden gate before Martin Williams came up to us. He was looking contrite, pathetic. He shouldn’t have followed us out.

‘I didn’t mean any harm,’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re right – what you said about Frank. And what I did yesterday at the hotel. I swear to you, I didn’t want to hurt you. You won’t tell the police, will you?’

Before I could stop him, Andreas lashed out. He swung round and his fist crashed into Martin’s face. If this had been one of Alan’s books, Martin would have been knocked off his feet and thrown, unconscious, to the ground. In fact, it was a lot less dramatic than that. There was a soft thwack and Martin was left standing, dazed, with blood streaming over his lip. It was possible Andreas had broken his nose.

The two of us walked away.

‘You said you weren’t going to hurt him,’ I said, as we walked back to the car.

‘I know,’ Andreas replied. ‘I’m sorry.’

I opened the car door. ‘Apology accepted.’

Checkout

When I was editing Atticus Pünd Takes the Case, I had one other argument with Alan Conway. It concerned the last two chapters, in which Atticus gets all the characters together at the Moonflower Hotel.

I know scenes like this work well on television. I’ve seen David Suchet as Poirot, John Nettles as Barnaby, Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, and between them they must have done it a hundred times, closing in on one suspect after another until finally they reveal the real culprit. But that was exactly my point. I was worried that even in what was intended to be a homage to the Golden Age of detective fiction, the climax was a little overdone. I wondered if Alan could find another way of presenting the information.

Well, you’ve read the book. You know how much faith Alan had in my editorial judgement.

So he would probably have been amused to see me in the lounge of Branlow Hall, surrounded by no fewer than seven people and a dog. The dog was Bear, Cecily’s golden retriever, and he at least was asleep in a corner. But the rest of them had come to hear me explain myself. I could almost feel the invisible TV cameras pointing in my direction.

This was my last day at the hotel. In fact, it was already past my checkout time. Lisa Treherne had asked me to leave, she had said, with the full support of her father, but I had rung Lawrence and told him that I knew who had killed Frank Parris and also what had happened to his daughter. I had reminded him that so far he hadn’t paid me a penny of the money he had promised me, egged on, I’m sure, by Lisa. He had agreed to meet me in the afternoon.

‘Come to the lounge at three o’clock and I’ll explain the whole thing,’ I said. ‘And bring a cheque for what you owe me. Ten thousand pounds made out to Andreas Patakis.’ Of course it should have had my name on it but Andreas had flown about two thousand miles in time to save me from a falling missile. I wanted him to be the one to have the pleasure of cashing it.

I had hoped that Lawrence would come alone, but Pauline was with him when he arrived and Aiden MacNeil had joined them too. I suppose that was fair enough: he had the greatest stake in what had happened. He was still waiting for news of Cecily. I did think it a little odd, though, that he had brought Eloise Radmani along for support. The two of them were sitting next to each other on a sofa and it struck me that they seemed to have a nanny/employer relationship that was strange and rather sinister. At least they had left Roxana with Inga. Worst of all, as far as I was concerned, Lisa Treherne had also invited herself to the party. I had Andreas with me and she nodded briefly at him but ignored me, throwing herself into an armchair as if she’d already decided the whole thing was going to be a waste of time.

Finally, Detective Chief Superintendent Locke was sitting in a chair next to the door. It had been Andreas who had persuaded me to invite him, but it hadn’t been an easy decision. I had no wish to see him again after our last meeting at Martlesham Heath. He was a bully and a racist and he was largely responsible for the injustice that had been done to Stefan Codrescu. But Andreas had insisted that someone from the police should be present. We had to make this official.

I was actually quite surprised he had agreed to come. Andreas and I had driven over to his office and it struck me that a pair of local sex offenders would have been given a warmer welcome. He had dismissed the idea that I knew who had killed Frank and became angry when I refused to tell him there and then. It was only the letter that Stefan had given me that changed his mind. It proved that Cecily had been convinced of his innocence and it made it clear that her disappearance was connected to what had happened all those years ago. Locke should have known about the letter. Its very existence made him look weak. That, I think, was the reason he was here.

It wasn’t quite the assembly that Atticus Pünd would have addressed – no butlers, vicars or chambermaids – but even so I got a strange sense of his presence in the room. I could almost see him perching on one of the empty seats, his walking stick beside him, waiting for me to begin. I’d often thought that my whole approach to crime – the way I talked to people or examined the evidence – was somehow influenced by him and his ridiculous book, The Landscape of Criminal Investigation, and I suppose, all in all, I had warm feelings towards him. I thought of him as a mentor. This was strange, firstly because he was a fictitious character but mainly because I couldn’t stand the man who had created him.

‘We’re waiting, Susan,’ Lisa said.

‘I’m sorry. I was just collecting my thoughts.’ I smiled. Maybe I could enjoy this after all. I was certainly never going to do it again. ‘Perhaps I should start by saying that I don’t know where Cecily is but I do know what happened to her. I also know exactly what she discovered in Atticus Pünd Takes the Case.’ There was a copy on the table in front of me. ‘I’m afraid Alan Conway left her a message – several messages, actually – and in doing so he put her in danger.’

I glanced at Andreas. He nodded at me. He was watching my back.