Then George knew why it was done and who had done it. He did not know how or where it was done. He realized that it had been there all the time, that he could have known from the beginning. He remembered the little things—the insincerity in Rob Earl’s voice when he was describing his friend, the phrase used by Sally when they had first met, a phrase which should have been followed up. There was no triumph in knowing. He gave Dennis another cigarette.

“So if you didn’t frighten Terry, why did he run away?”

“God knows. Why did he do anything?”

Dennis was getting restless now, quickly smoking his cigarette, knowing that there was no chance of getting another. The prison officer looked through the window and tapped at his watch. They had lunch early. He was in a hurry to get the prisoners ready.

“Did you like him?” George asked, looking for the first time directly at the man. “Did you like Tom French?”

Dennis stood up, already programmed by the routine of the prison.

“No,” he said. “ I don’t know why. There was no reason why I shouldn’t. But I couldn’t stand him. I hated his guts.”

Impatiently the officer swung the door open, and George and the three men and the woman, who seemed to be almost in tears, were shepherded back to the gate, as if they, too, had been prisoners.

George drove slowly back to the coast. It was a different problem now. Before there had been a desperation to know, and that was all that mattered. Now he knew what had happened. First he had to convince himself intellectually that he was right, then he would have to do something about it. He stopped at the side of the road just outside Rushy. There was a line of birdwatchers on the shingle bank silhouetted against the sun. He looked through his binoculars to check that he was not missing anything especially rare, but they were lying back and talking.

At Fenquay, Sally asked him into the house in a whisper. She had just put Barnaby to sleep and was afraid that she would wake him. She looked strained still, and very tired.

“Barnaby’s teething,” she said, when George observed that she was not looking well.

“You’ll be worried about Peter too,” he said.

“I don’t know anyone called Peter.”

“Sit down,” he said comfortably. “ I’ll make us both some tea.”

She did as she was told, and was still sitting there when he returned. She took the mug and cupped her hands around it. She drank slowly and big, wary eyes stared at him over the rim of the mug.

“You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “Just listen and see if I’ve got it right. You went to work on Tresco. I don’t know why. That bit isn’t important. You found it difficult to settle. You’d done hotel work before, so you went to Scilly. It must have been beautiful in the spring. You would have arrived at about this time of the year. You felt out of place on Tresco and you didn’t get on specially well with the other girls in the hotel—Annie sends her regards by the way. So on your days off you explored the other islands.