“I didn’t know that.” She spoke quietly, sadly. “I didn’t know that Peter was here. Not until …” She hesitated.

“Not until the evening after the film at the Windmill. The night when we found Adam Anderson in the well. The night you suddenly felt ill and had to go home.”

“Yes,” she said. “ I was so confused and miserable. I didn’t want to believe that Peter could have killed Tom, but it seemed so odd seeing him there, after all this time. It seemed such a coincidence. He had been married and now he was free … I had been as good as married and now I was free. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been in touch with me. And then there were the letters.”

“I know,” George said gently, “another dreadful coincidence.”

“You can’t understand what it was like. Getting the letters was bad enough. Thinking that Tom’s murderer was interested in me, worrying about Barnaby. Then, before I knew that he was here, it was dreaming about Peter that kept me sane. Just to know that somewhere there was someone I could care about honestly. And then to find out that he was mixed up in all this. I even thought that he had written the letters for some mad reason.”

“Did you know that he was in Rushy on the morning Tom died, and that he didn’t let anyone know that he was here?”

“No, I didn’t know,” she said, then quickly, hopefully, trying to persuade herself as well as George: “I’ve been thinking. It is possible that he doesn’t know that I’m here. Another coincidence. He does’t know anything about Barnaby, so he wouldn’t connect Tom’s girlfriend and baby with me. Even if they mentioned my name, Sally’s not unusual.” She grinned weakly. “And in the village they call me Mrs. French. I think they mean it to be kind. They know I’m not married.

“He didn’t see me that night at the film. They must have been late coming in, because he wasn’t there when the lights went off, and I left early to go and get things ready at the Windmill. I could see Rob Earl when I went out of the hall, and I could see that there was someone sitting next to him, but in the dark I didn’t know who it was. He would never have been able to recognize me in that light. That evening, back at the Windmill. I didn’t leave the kitchen. So you see, he might not even know that I’m here.”

George realized that for this instant she was more concerned that Peter might have rejected her, forgotten about her, than that he was a murderer.

“Yes,” he said. “It might be as you say. But until we can find him and talk to him we can’t find out.”

“Why? Where is he? He hasn’t run away?”

“Not exactly. He’s gone to Scotland to see a rare bird.”

“Do you think he killed Tom?” She said it conversationally, breathlessly.