“I’m worried about that boy. Can we trust Ella to keep an eye on him?”

“I think so, now she understands it’s important. Did you get anything useful from Mrs. Cranshaw?”

George explained what had happened.

“So Bernard wrote the letters,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about it. I suppose that I should go to the police, but I don’t think that Sally has reported the letters to them. I want to talk to Cranshaw first in any event. I want to find out who told him about Tom’s conviction for possession of cannabis.”

“You don’t talk as if he killed Tom.”

“I don’t think that he did, though I’m not sure why. There’s the timing. Even if he left his house at eight o’clock, he can’t have got to the track before twenty past. But it’s not just that. I can accept that he might have hit out at Tom in a crazy fit of anger, but whoever pushed Adam down the well planned it. Adam was coming to meet someone—otherwise he would have brought his binoculars and telescope. I’m not ruling Cranshaw out entirely, but I’m not convinced.”

“So knowing who wrote the letters doesn’t help find out who killed Tom.”

“I’m not sure. It may just be a-horrible coincidence. Or perhaps not quite a coincidence. I’ve an idea that Tom provoked the same response in Cranshaw and the murderer. He made people angry. I’m sure that Bernard originally wrote to Sally as a means of hurting Tom.”

“But everyone says that Tom was a kind person, a gentle person.”

“Perhaps he was. But kind and gentle people can be intensely irritating. Sally knows that.”

Molly was breaking into a run, in an attempt to keep up with George. Now that he had fulfilled all the obligations of the list, he was desperately impatient to talk to Peter. Peter was the one person to link all the strands of the mystery surrounding Tom. George arrived at the cottage several paces before Molly. She wondered why he did not go in, then realized that the door was locked. A note had been pinned to it.

Key next door. Help yourselves to anything you need. Phone call from Dave W. Black stork near Perth. Sorry we couldn’t take you, but we already have a full car. See you in a few days.

Peter, Rob and Tina

“I don’t believe it,” George said bitterly. “ First Terry and now Peter. It’s like a conspiracy.”

He turned to Molly and shouted, “Come on! We’ll have to get the car. We’re going to Fenquay to see Sally.”

Chapter Ten

Sally was surprised to see them, a little wary, although she tried to be friendly. The greyness and the rain had been blown away by a strong wind from the sea and she was hanging nappies on the line. Her blonde hair was swept back from her face, and her long skirt was tangled between her legs. She walked back into the house in front of them, the washing basket held on one hip, her back very straight, her body swaying slightly as she walked, and George thought again how feminine she was, in a primitive way which had nothing to do with clothes or perfume. She made coffee for them while they played with Barnaby, piling bricks in a tower for him to knock down. He laughed, reaching out to the tower before it was properly completed, laughing deeply with the whole of his small body. Sally came from the kitchen to sit with them, pleased by Barnaby’s happiness despite her anxiety. She sat very still, waiting for George to speak. First he drank his coffee, and still she waited, without a word, while he emptied the mug and placed it on a shelf out of Barnaby’s reach. She allowed herself one nervous gesture during this time, twisting a silver ring which she wore on her middle finger.