‘So you two can piss off back to OLAF and I hope you find what you’re looking for on your memory stick, although it looks to me as if the whole thing is going to be a complete waste of time anyway because the line is dead – as are Helen and Charles le Mesurier – and you’ve got nothing left to investigate except for some French company that will probably walk rings around you. What time is your flight?’

‘The plane is waiting now.’

‘Well, I won’t say bon voyage. Just, get lost.’

Maïssa Lamar and her assistant made no reply. They picked themselves up and Emil collected the suitcases. They were heading for the door when Maïssa stopped and turned round. ‘There is one thing,’ she said. ‘When I came to the party at The Lookout, I carried with me a purse which I left in the hall. I thought it would be safe. But when I left the house, I discovered that it had been opened. A fifty-euro note had been taken and some of the coins had spilled out.’

‘Do you have any idea who took it?’

‘No. Perhaps the girl who was serving . . . I don’t know. But it is possible also that a coin may have gone.’

‘Thank you.’ Hawthorne watched them leave and I think we were both in full accord. We were glad to see them gone.

19

The Simple Answer

After Maïssa had gone, I called the waitress over and ordered a double gin and tonic. Hawthorne asked for a glass of water, which arrived with a slice of lemon. ‘Don’t you ever drink anything except water?’ I asked him.

He seemed surprised by the question. ‘Not really.’

‘Have you ever drunk alcohol?’

‘No.’

It was time for dinner and I wondered if we might eat together, not that I had much appetite after everything that had happened that day. The drinks came and we sipped them in a silence that might, I suppose, have been called companionable. The argument we’d had just before we’d visited Derek Abbott had been forgotten and it seemed to me as good a moment as any to press him for some of the information that always seemed to be just out of my grasp.

‘When we were doing our event together, you said that you didn’t have any brothers or sisters,’ I began. ‘But when we were in London, you mentioned that you had a half-brother who was an estate agent.’ I waited for him to comment. He said nothing. ‘Did one of your parents remarry?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Are they still alive?’

‘No.’ The monosyllables were in stark contrast to his performance in front of an audience. They also made no sense. How was it possible to have a half-brother if his parents had never remarried?

‘What did your father do?’ I tried again. ‘Was he a police officer?’