‘We’ll come to that. You know the weird thing about this whole business? It’s Charles le Mesurier tied to that chair but one hand left free.’ Torode pointed at the photocopy. ‘That’s the simple answer. At first, it was all friendly. Maybe they took a few lines of cocaine together. But then Abbott got the better of him. He could have used that walking stick of his to hit le Mesurier on the head. He tied him to the chair, but he left one hand free – his right hand – because he needed him to sign something. A cheque! He must have threatened him with something nasty to get him to cooperate, but when le Mesurier signed this piece of paper he wasn’t thinking straight. It was his death warrant. Of course Abbott couldn’t keep him alive, because if he did, the next day le Mesurier would simply ring the bank and cancel the cheque. So he killed him.’

‘For twenty thousand quid?’

‘And the Rolex watch. That doubles it.’

‘Have you spoken to Abbott yet?’

‘I’m speaking to you first.’ Torode was enjoying himself, knowing that he had Hawthorne at a disadvantage. ‘Now, let’s go back to what you said about nobody seeing the two of them go in together. That’s not true, of course.’

‘Helen le Mesurier . . .’

‘That’s right. Nice of you to show me those texts. Put them together and they make complete sense.’ He took out a notebook and read from it. ‘What happened last night? I saw you leave with Charles.’ He looked up triumphantly. ‘She was a witness. She saw someone cross the garden from her bedroom window.’

‘But we don’t know who.’

‘No. But we know it was someone who lived less than thirty minutes away from her home on foot. She left at two o’clock for a two-thirty meeting and I got Whitlock to time it for me. You can easily walk from The Lookout to Quesnard Cottage in half an hour – and her route would have taken her right next to the Mannez Quarry. Easy enough for Abbott to wait for her, talk her into going into that cave for a bit of privacy and then do her in with a rock.’ He frowned. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have made that remark about the coconut. Whitlock’s very highly strung.’

‘She’s also a volunteer,’ I reminded him.

‘Was. She’s handed in her notice.’ He drank some of the beer. ‘Then there’s that other text to consider. Bit sneaky of you not to tell me that Colin was Colin Matheson, but I suppose you were trying to earn your fee. Anyway, it didn’t take me long to work it out for myself. There are thirty-eight Colins living on the island of Alderney, but only one of them was at the party that night so it wasn’t too hard.’

‘Great detective work,’ Hawthorne muttered.