‘I know! I know!’ Torode shook his head. ‘As for the others, I imagine you’ve had a chance to talk to the whole lot of them by now. Any thoughts?’ The barman brought over the drinks. ‘Put them on his room.’ Torode pointed at me and lifted his glass. ‘Cheers!’

Whitlock stared at her tomato juice but didn’t touch it.

‘I’ll make sure you’ve got all their addresses and contact numbers,’ Torode went on. ‘But if your reputation’s anything to go by, you’ve probably worked it out by now anyway. If not, this might help.’ He produced a second envelope, just like the one Whitlock had given us the evening before. ‘Mrs le Mesurier’s medical report. No surprises there. Blunt trauma. Three blows more or less caved in the skull, leading to massive haemorrhaging. There was enough blood swilling around in there to fill a coconut.’

Whitlock looked up from the tomato juice. Her face had gone pale. ‘Excuse me, sir . . .’ She hurried out of the room.

Torode watched her leave. ‘Sorry about that. She’s done nothing but complain since I brought her here. I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘What happens to the money?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘What money? Oh – you mean the will. That’s a good question, considering that Mrs le Mesurier just became a wealthy woman . . . not that she had any time to enjoy it. I’ve spoken to her solicitor. No children of her own, of course, but she has a brother and a sister and it’s their lucky day. They get everything. But there’s no chance that either of them had anything to do with it, if that’s what you’re thinking. One works for Goldman Sachs in London and the other’s a teacher in Wales. There was one little thing that surprised me. She left a hundred thousand to the school here in St Anne. Wouldn’t have thought she’d have cared.’

I knew better. Colin Matheson had told us that he had first got close to Helen when he was on an education committee. She invited me to The Lookout to talk about a possible bequest. I’d never heard of anyone being murdered to benefit a school library, but it still made me wonder who on the island might have known about the money.

‘What else?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘Derek Abbott,’ Torode replied. He knew the effect the words would have. He let them hang in the air. ‘You went to see him,’ he added.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘He didn’t fall down any stairs if that’s what you’re asking.’

Torode wasn’t amused by that. ‘Come off it, Hawthorne. You know what I mean.’ He waited. ‘Did he kill her? Did he kill both of them?’

Hawthorne blinked. ‘What makes you think that, Deputy Chief?’