“I was in London for most of the weekend. I just came to Rushy for the day. I didn’t know that Tom was dead until I met you at Trekewick. I must have left Rushy before they found his body. I didn’t think that the fog would clear and I left at about four.”

“When we saw you at Trekewick you gave the impression that you had only recently left St. Agnes. Certainly you didn’t get in touch with any of your friends. Why was that?”

Peter said nothing. George thought for a while that he was going to refuse to answer, but he seemed to be making a real effort to be accurate.

“I needed time to sort myself out. I was in quite a state. I might not have seemed upset about what happened on Scilly, but I felt—damaged. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about it. That’s why I didn’t go into the Windmill that Saturday. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew.”

“How did you get to Rushy? What time did you arrive?”

“I’d hired a car for the whole weekend. I arrived at about nine and parked on the other side of the village. I don’t know why I came, really. I felt silly creeping about in the fog trying to avoid people. But the weather forecast was so good that I couldn’t stay away. How did you know I was there?”

“A young birder saw you. Why have you never told anyone that you were here that day?”

“It just seemed easier. I couldn’t face having to explain what I’d been doing. And I hadn’t seen anything so what was the point?”

He turned away, but smiled to show that he was not angry, took another glass of wine and went back to Tina and Rob.

Sally had been intimidated by the first crowd of guests and had hidden in the kitchen, refilling empty plates, cutting warm sausage rolls into what Ella had described as a size fit for sophisticated mouths. With a feeling of envy at other people’s self-confidence, she listened to the guests beyond the open door, to the conversation and the laughter. She could hear Ella, already a little loud with wine and the triumph of her success. And then she heard another voice, a voice she recognized. The words which she heard contained a certain, a specific meaning for her and she felt certain she knew who had killed Tom French.

George took Sally home. Ella had found her in the kitchen looking pale and shaken. Sally claimed to have been sick. She certainly looked ill, George thought, as they drove towards Fenquay, but her defensive explanation of the illness, the almost hysterical insistence that she leave the Windmill by the back door, seemed to suggest a different reason for her desire to leave the party. When asked, gently, if she had received any further anonymous letters, she answered in an off-hand way, as if she had forgotten all about them. Then she refused to talk to him, and when he dropped her outside her cottage she did not invite him in. He offered to see her safely inside, but she ignored him and was out of the car before he had finished speaking. There was nothing to do but to drive back to Rushy.