Sid licked his lips nervously. ‘Look, I know we got off to the wrong start, but we can put all that behind us. And maybe we could come to some sort of arrangement. I mean, it would be very useful to us if you could see your way to acknowledging her contribution publicly.’

‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ Hawthorne countered. ‘I’ll have a good think about it and it’s just possible that I might not tell the police that you withheld vital information for forty-eight hours or recommend that you’re both arrested. And when my mate Tony writes his book about what happened here on Alderney, which is what he’s going to do, I might persuade him to moderate his language and not point out that the two of you are lying scumbags who feed on people’s grief to line your own pockets and that what you did to a friend of ours – Anne Cleary – in front of a paying audience was about as low as it’s possible to get. Apart from that, what I’d suggest is that you both fuck off out of here before I really lose my temper.’ He smiled. ‘How does that sound?’

The two of them got stiffly to their feet. Sid held out a hand to help guide Elizabeth out of the room, but she shrugged it off. I waited until the two of them had gone. ‘What were the mistakes?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘How did you know she wasn’t blind?’

‘The first time I met her, at the theatre, you introduced me to her and she held out a hand . . . sort of in my direction. But since I hadn’t said anything, how could she have had any idea where I was? When she first came to see us in the dining room to suggest this séance, I held out a chair for her and she felt for it. But again, I hadn’t made a sound. There were lots of things like that. The truth is, the two of them were so amateur that I’m surprised more people didn’t notice what they were up to.’

‘But you said the ghosts were real!’

‘The lady who drowned in the bath and Anne Cleary’s son? They might have been wandering around the room with chains on their ankles, holding their heads in their hands. But that doesn’t mean she was able to see them.’

‘So what now?’ I asked. ‘Will you tell Torode about Derek Abbott going into the Snuggery?’ It was exactly the piece of evidence that the deputy chief had been waiting for.

Hawthorne shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have said I had much choice. What do you think?’

‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t think you do.’

That might have been the end of it, except that the night still had one other small surprise waiting for me.