‘Well, I hope you find out. Charles le Mesurier may not have been a very nice man, but nobody deserves to die in that way. And as for his wife, I don’t understand that at all. It seems to me, the only thing she ever did wrong was marrying him.’

The sound of hooting came from outside.

‘I’d better be on my way.’ She picked up her suitcase. ‘Do come and see me if you happen to be in Oxford.’

‘I’d like that.’ We kissed and she went on her way.

She had no sooner gone than the lift doors opened and Kathryn Harris came out, struggling under the weight of two bags, her glasses slipping off her face. There was a third case behind her in the lift. I went over to her. ‘Can I give you a hand?’

‘Thank you.’ She let me take them. They were just as heavy as they had been when they came off the plane. ‘They’re both Marc’s,’ she explained. ‘I’m afraid we didn’t sell as many books as we’d hoped.’

‘Where are you heading to?’ I asked.

‘Back to London. Marc’s filming a guest spot on the Christmas edition of Celebrity Storage Hunters.’ She pulled a face. ‘Don’t tell him I told you! It’s meant to be a secret.’

I left Kathryn’s cases by the front door, then went to the reception desk to pay my bill (the last two nights had not been included). The same young receptionist who had checked us in was behind the desk and she looked at me sadly. ‘We’re going to miss you,’ she said. ‘We’re not used to this sort of excitement in Alderney. We’ve never had a murder here before.’

‘You’re not the first person to tell me that,’ I said.

Finally, Hawthorne came down, carrying his suitcase, his coat neatly folded over his arm. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

He looked surprised. ‘I’m fine.’

‘I couldn’t sleep at all,’ I said. ‘After what happened, I had to go out and get some air.’

I wanted him to tell me where he had gone after our session with the Lovells, but he wasn’t playing. ‘I slept fine,’ he said. He looked past me at Kathryn, who was waiting to take the lift back up. ‘Have you seen Marc Bellamy?’

The receptionist overheard him. ‘Mr Bellamy is having breakfast on the terrace,’ she said.

We went out and found him.

He was sitting on his own at the far end, tucking into the sort of breakfast that he would have promoted on his television programme: eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, fried bread, mushrooms. He was wearing a tweed jacket and a cravat. It was as if he had already dressed up for his appearance on Celebrity Storage Hunters.

‘How do!’ he exclaimed. ‘Are you on your way out of here?’