‘Sarcasm won’t get you very far with me, Hawthorne. So what does the text tell us? Colin Matheson and Helen le Mesurier were having an affair and they both came to regret it. What had happened? I went round to Mr Matheson – and his wife – and we had a little chat. I can’t say Mrs Matheson was too pleased to hear what hubby had been getting up to, but that’s his problem. He told me he’d already spoken to you and that you know the rest of it – that Derek Abbott was blackmailing him about this stupid power line. Something to do with shares in a company called Electricity de Nord. So whatever happens, I think we can be confident that Mr Abbott is going right back where a pervert like him belongs.’

‘Blackmail?’ Hawthorne looked doubtful. ‘You’ll have to prove it and there’s no evidence. It’s Matheson’s word against his.’

Torode ignored this. ‘Blackmail’s only the start of it. It would only get Abbott five years in jail, if we were lucky. I’m not going to let him slip through our fingers a second time, the way you did. I want him put away for life.’

‘So why haven’t you arrested him?’

Torode drank half his beer and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He looked annoyed and it didn’t take me long to work out why. Despite everything, he still needed Hawthorne. ‘I haven’t arrested him because you’re right,’ he explained. ‘At the moment, most of the evidence is circumstantial. I haven’t found anyone yet who can put him in that cave with Mrs le Mesurier or, for that matter, in the Snuggery with her husband. I was rather hoping that you might have come up with something.’

‘You’re one step ahead of me, Deputy Chief.’

‘Well, I suppose I should take that as a compliment,’ Torode remarked, but I knew differently. He wasn’t one step ahead of anyone. There wasn’t a single thing he had said that Hawthorne hadn’t already worked out for himself long before. ‘Anyway, perhaps you’ll understand now why I’m letting the other writers go. No point hanging on to them when we’ve got our prime suspect sitting right here on the island.’

‘When are they leaving?’

‘There’s a flight at eleven tomorrow morning. I imagine you’ll be going with them.’

Hawthorne considered. ‘There doesn’t seem much more for me to do here.’

‘No. That’s right. Of course, I’m afraid that puts an end to that little agreement we talked about at the start of all this. It turns out that I’ve done all the work for you, so I don’t think I can justify any ex officio payments. You do understand?’

‘I’d say I’ve put in the hours.’