George Palmer-Jones had watched Bernard Cranshaw’s arrival with interest and walked, apparently without purpose, towards the man who now held a second glass in his left hand.

“How is your mother now?” George asked politely. “ I understand that she had a fall a couple of weeks ago.”

“Yes.” Bernard spoke abruptly, strangely, as if he were thinking of something else. George could not tell whether or not the man recognized him. “Yes, she did. She’s better now though, I think.”

“How did she fall?”

“She was going to the bathroom and fell down the stairs.”

“When did it happen?”

“Oh, early one Saturday morning. She gets confused in the mornings. She’s very good for her age, but a bit unsteady in the mornings.”

“Must have been unpleasant for her. Inconvenient for you too. You usually go out on the marsh at weekends, don’t you? I suppose her accident kept you in.”

“What?” He still seemed preoccupied. “ No, after the doctor came, she seemed to be comfortable. I always go out on Saturday mornings.”

“What time would that have been?”

There was no suggestion that this was an interrogation. It was polite and courteous interest.

“I can’t remember that. How should I know?” the man replied sharply.

“Did you go out as soon as the doctor left?”

“Eh?” He had gone too far. Cranshaw’s attention was jerked back to the present. Only now did he seem to realize what they were talking about.

“I don’t know. What the hell’s this about anyway?”

Luckily he seemed not to expect an answer, and when George began to talk about the film he joined in, explaining in quite an interesting way how some of the shots had been taken. He left soon after, and Molly heard him say to Ella that his mother would be expecting him home. He seemed genuinely sorry that he had to leave early.

Rob and Peter were getting cheerfully drunk. Rob Earl had decided to accept the job in Bristol and he was talking about the places he would be visiting through work. He seemed to have thrown off his earlier irritation, but there was something forced about his laughter. Peter was giggling gently. Tina drank little, but appeared unoffended by the men’s behaviour. Molly felt that her instinct about Tina and Adam had been right and experienced a maternal sympathy for the girl, who seemed lost and lonely.

Molly watched her husband skillfully separate Peter from the others and move with him out of earshot of Rob and Tina. Peter did not notice what was happening.

George made no attempt to conceal the purpose of the conversation.

“I understand that you were in Rushy the weekend that Tom died. Is that true?”

He appeared to talk quite naturally, but his voice was pitched so low that no one else could hear what he was saying.

Peter had been pulling faces at two of Sandra’s children who were confined to the kitchen, but who had been peeping round the door, their curiosity stronger than their fear of their mother. He stopped. Palmer-Jones’s voice demanded full attention and a serious answer.