When they did not reply she asked:

“You are from the police?”

“No, Mrs. Black. My name’s Palmer-Jones. I wanted to talk to Terry. What has happened to him?”

She looked exhausted.

“I don’t know. The police think that he’s run away because he killed Tom French. They’re looking for him.”

Because they were not the police, she motioned them to sit down, and sat herself, large and proud, in an upright chair, fierce despite her tiredness and depression.

“But that’s not true, Mr. Palmer-Jones. He’s a kind, good-natured boy. I wouldn’t be afraid to think of him as my son. He has never hurt anyone in his life and I can’t believe that he would hurt Tommy, his friend. He always called Tommy his friend. He’s been with me for a long time, Mr. Palmer-Jones, and I know more about him than a policeman who’s never met him.”

Molly went over to the stiff, controlled woman and took her hand. Mrs. Black, with her dark clothes and her tense, mindless grief, reminded Molly of a person recently bereaved.

“We don’t think that Terry killed anyone, Mrs. Black. When did he go missing?”

“Sunday. He left work early. Before lunch.”

Molly was still holding the woman’s hand. She looked quickly at her husband.

“That must have been soon after I spoke to him.”

Then she said very gently:

“Mrs. Black, do you have any idea where Terry went?”

She shook her head. Silent tears ran down her cheeks.

“I phoned the hospital,” she said. “If he was worried or upset why didn’t he talk to me? I would have helped him.”

“The hospital?” Molly asked, ignoring her impulse to comfort and reassure the woman.

“Since he was a boy until he came to stay with me, he lived in a big hospital just outside Skeffingham. It was the only place I could think where he would go.”

“Do you know where he lived before he was sent to the hospital?”

“He never talked about it. He didn’t have much of a memory.

I think it was with his grandfather, but even the staff at the hospital didn’t seem to know. It was twenty-five years ago.”

“Did anyone in the village see him after he left the hotel?”

“Yes. The landlord of the Blue Anchor saw him. He looked in at the pub, but he didn’t stop.”

“Did he have any money with him?”

“Not much. They didn’t pay him much.”

The big woman seemed at last to realize what was happening and to think rationally.

“Why do you think he ran away?” she asked. “If he didn’t kill Tom, why did he run away?”

“I talked to Terry on Saturday,” Molly said, “ and again on Sunday. We think that he saw someone else on the morning of Tom’s death. Someone frightened Terry, so that he wouldn’t tell us exactly what he saw. Perhaps he was so frightened that he ran away.”

“Or perhaps whoever killed Tommy killed Terry so that he wouldn’t talk.”