“Did you try to persuade Tom not to take the job?”

“Of course not. It wasn’t the job that was so important, although I would have been brilliant, much better than Tom.” He was only half joking. “I just don’t like losing. They’ve written to me offering me the post now, but I’m not sure if I’m going to take it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like being second best.”

He looked straight at George.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing on the morning Tom died?”

“Is there any need to ask?”

“You’re playing detective, aren’t you? I must be a suspect.”

“As you say, you must be a suspect. Have you spoken to the police?”

“They spoke to me. But they, apparently, don’t have your source of information. They don’t know about the job. They just asked me where I was on that Saturday morning.”

“So where were you?”

“I was on the marsh,” he said slowly. “All morning I was on the marsh. Mostly in the hides waiting for the fog to lift. I could just see the avocets and I was sketching them.”

He grinned and the tension between them was relieved.

“I can show you the notebook if you like, but I suppose that could hardly count as evidence.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“People were coming in and out of the hide all morning, mostly in groups of two or three.”

“Did you go down the marsh track?”

“Only later, at about eleven. I went to the village to buy some tobacco. Then I went to the Windmill for a blow-out greasy breakfast.”

“You should take that job,” George said. “You’d be good.”

Molly had seen the penduline tit and had thought it pretty. She liked small, pale, delicate birds, but enjoyed them only for the time she could see them. If she was shown the same bird on the following day she would not recognize it. She went birdwatching with George for the excitement of the chase, the new places they visited, and because the people they met at each rare bird fascinated her.

She had not expected to feel as bereft at retirement as she had done. She had always been involved in so many activities outside work, perhaps too many activities so that the family life, her time with the children, had always seemed muddled and frenetic. She had thought that she would enjoy a time of quiet, enjoy having the time to do things well. But she had missed work desperately. It was not just that she missed feeling useful, although that was important. It was that she missed meeting people who were different, unusual, unconventional. The people she met at work usually had problems, and it was the problems which set them apart, but Molly’s focus had been not on the problem, but the person. It was this curiosity, this fascination with people which had remained with her after retirement, and which she found difficult to satisfy. Norton’s Cross gossip sustained her interest for a while, but its residents turned out to be tediously sane and unadventurous. Her introduction to the twitching world had brought her into contact with dozens of new people of different ages, from different backgrounds, most of whom were friendly, most of whom enjoyed talking about themselves, even if only in terms of the birds they had seen and the trips they planned. Many people recognized her, but did not know who she was. She did not talk a lot, but she listened. A trip to see a rarity was as much an adventure for her as it was for her husband.