They were still asleep at mid-day when George Palmer-Jones called to see them, but the door was unlocked so he went inside. Tina had taken the bed and the bedroom and the men were asleep on the sitting-room floor. They did not stir when he looked in on them. George returned to the kitchen. He made a pot of tea, emptied the packet of biscuits he had brought with him on to a plate, and carried everything on a tray into the sitting room. With this peace offering he woke them. They were not angry, or even surprised to be woken, and sat half-dressed, half-covered by their sleeping bags, to drink tea and to talk. They thought that he had come to find out about the bee-eater. There was a lot of good-natured speculation about the root of the rumour.

“I’ve just come back from the Scillies,” George said conversationally.

“Why?” Rob asked quickly, aggressively. “What’s been seen there? Why weren’t we told about it? Was it suppressed?”

“I didn’t have time for birdwatching.”

There was a silence.

“Why did you go to Scilly?” Peter asked quietly.

“I had some information and I needed to check it. I had to find out if there was any real connection between you and Tom French. I saw Barbara. She doesn’t send her love.”

“The only connection was the one that you know about. Tom and I were both twitchers. We were friends.”

“No,” George Palmer-Jones said. “The real connection between you and Tom French was a girl. A girl called Sally.”

“But I don’t understand,” Peter said “ I haven’t seen Sally since the autumn before last. She left very suddenly. She didn’t write. I don’t even know where she is.”

“Is that true?” The question was put to them all. Adam would not meet his eyes. He looked blank, as if he were embarrassed to be listening to the conversation. Rob shrugged his shoulders. Peter looked quickly at his friend.

“Of course it’s true. I tried to find out where she was from the hotel, but they didn’t seem to know either. She hadn’t given them any notice that she was leaving.”

“You are talking about Tom’s Sally, Sally Johnson?” Rob asked.

George nodded and Rob continued: “I don’t think that I’ve told Peter about Sally. I certainly didn’t realize that Peter knew her before Tom did. I wasn’t on St. Mary’s when: Peter must have been going out with her, and I was never very good at writing to him. So far as I know it’s true that Peter didn’t know that she was here.”

Was he George thought, being a little too accurate? If George had asked a different question would he have received more information?

Peter interrupted George’s thoughts.

“I don’t understand,” he repeated. “ How do you all know Sally? Does she live round here? Did Tom know her?”

“I would have thought,” George said, “ that by now you would have gathered that Sally was Tom French’s girlfriend. She lives at Fenquay.”