“I heard some of the birdwatchers talking about Tom French. A group of the young ones, no more than children themselves, were in one of the hides. They had the flaps open and I could hear what they were saying. He thought that he was their hero, but they could see through him, just like I did. They said that he lectured them about taking drugs, but he’d been in court for it himself. It was a sign. Don’t you see?” He looked eagerly at Molly. “ They’d given me the information I needed. It was a sign that I ought to act.”

“So,” Molly repeated, “ you wrote to the parents. But what about the other letters, Bernard, the letters to Tom’s girlfriend, to Sally Johnson? You wrote to her too, didn’t you?”

“It was for her own good,” he said wildly. “Don’t you see? That man was corrupting her. She’s a good woman, a beautiful woman. She didn’t need him, I had to warn her off.”

“But after he died, Bernard? What was the point of writing to her then?” George thought that Molly was losing a little of her social worker’s self-control, but perhaps the hint of accusation in her voice was intended.

“I enjoyed it,” the man said simply. “ I did it when Mother was in bed. It was exciting. It made me excited to think that I was writing to her.”

“Didn’t you think that she might be frightened?”

“That was all part of it. I imagined her lying in bed, frightened. Because of me.”

“But you haven’t written to her for a while now. Did you realize that it was wrong, that, it was hurting her, and that you would have to stop?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t write to her. I had an accident and hurt my arm so that I couldn’t write. But it didn’t stop me thinking about her. I lie awake every night and think about her.”

His eyes were gleaming with the memory of his pleasure and desire. George watched with distaste, then looked at Molly, whose face expressed only interest, understanding. How does she do it? he wondered, she seems almost to be encouraging him, by sitting there so calmly and acceptingly.

“Do you like seeing people frightened, Bernard?” she said. “Other people?”

He shook his head. “It was only her. I didn’t write to anyone else. I couldn’t forget her. I dreamt about her.”

“But what about the birdwatchers? I think you like making them frightened. Didn’t you shoot at them on the marsh to make them scared?”

He laughed with sudden delight and George realized how disturbed he was. “ That’s different,” Bernard said. Then, more calmly, “ I never meant to hit them.”

Molly persisted, her voice still gentle but very firm. “When we came in, you and your mother were having an argument. You were very angry. Do you often get angry?”

“No,” he said very quickly, “not very often.”

“Perhaps when you get angry,” she persisted, “ you do things that you regret. Perhaps then you feel ashamed and you lie about it, and then it’s difficult to explain what you did and why you did it. Has that ever happened, Bernard?”