“Her bark is worse than her bite. The rudeness is directed at me, not you.” George felt a need to reassure the boy.

They sat together at the table, sharing a bottle of beer, poring over the notebook Adam had brought. Molly watched as she chopped onion and carrot and mint for the salad in a smooth wooden bowl. She was glad that George was being kind. She thought that something was upsetting the thin, white lad, who now discussed so intensely the plumage details of bimaculated and calandra lark.

Molly bullied them into clearing a space on the kitchen table so that they could eat. Adam felt himself relax. The beer was strong and he was not used to drinking. At first he fought against the sense of well-being, but the two people who sat with him were so kind and caring that he could not believe that they would do him any harm. The food was delicious and as they ate George poured more beer. Afterwards there was sloe gin, sweet, strong and scented. They went into another room to drink it, a small sitting room with deep, comfortable armchairs and a fire.

Adam found that he was talking too much, about birds, birders, the Scillies and Shetland. George listened, gave gentle, considered replies. Adam fell silent, disconcerted because he found it so easy to talk. In the silence Molly’s deep breathing turned into a snore. She was sleeping. George grinned at Adam, totally unembarrassed. Then, seriously, he said:

“I’d like to talk about Tom. Do you mind?”

Adam shook his head.

“How well did you know him?”

“Well. He was the first twitcher I met. He introduced me to it.”

“Were you close to him?”

Adam hesitated. “ Not exactly close. He was quite a bit older than me. But he taught me all I know about birds. That made him very important.”

“Can you tell me where you were on that Saturday morning, what you did and who you saw?”

“I got to Rushy late on Friday night. You know that the weather map looked good, so I wanted to make an early start on Saturday. I dossed in the shed by the coastguard store. You know, next to the Windmill.”

George did know. It was a popular place for the twitchers to sleep.

“Was anyone else there?”

“There was someone I didn’t know, an older man. He said he’d come from Cheshire for the weekend. He sounded a bit of a stringer. And Rob Earl was there.”

“Did you see the Cheshire stringer again during the day?”

“He was at the lark I think and in Ella’s afterwards, but I didn’t see him in the morning. He was still asleep when we left.”

“What about Rob?”

“We went to the hides together, but it was too foggy to see anything much. I thought it might be better inland, so I went through the village to the copse. Rob stayed on the marsh.”

“Which way did you go to the village? Down the wide marsh track and on to the road?”