‘Colin Matheson asked me that when I was doing my talk in Alderney,’ Hawthorne replied. ‘I told him I wanted the truth, and I suppose that’s close enough. But actually, it’s more than that. I want you to face up to what you did because here you are sitting in this nice house, surrounded by nice things, but you’re not nice, are you? You’re a killer.’

‘You don’t think he deserved it? Charles le Mesurier destroyed my son and made money out of his pain – and the pain of hundreds like him! Go on the website. Look at it.’

‘I’ve been on their website. I’ve seen what you saw and I’m sorry about your boy. I really am. But nobody deserves to be murdered, Anne. You know that, even if you’ve persuaded yourself otherwise. That was the mistake you made.’

Silence. The clock ticking. Then . . .

‘Why don’t you ask your daughter to come down?’

Anne stiffened. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Her car’s parked outside. I’ve had a friend of mine watching the house since you got back. I thought you would have got that by now. You can’t lie to me.’

The door opened and a young woman came in. ‘Mum,’ she said.

‘Don’t—’ Anne began.

‘It’s all right, Mum. He knows.’

Kathryn Harris was wearing jeans and a shirt knotted at the waist. She had taken off the overlarge spectacles that she had used to disguise her face and as she sat down I thought how similar the two women were. But then, from the very start I had said that Anne Cleary reminded me of someone’s mother. I just hadn’t realised whose.

‘How did you know?’ Kathryn asked Hawthorne.

‘That you were related? Well, we could start with your mum’s books. I really did love those books, by the way. Me and my son couldn’t get enough of them. Bill and Kitty Flashbang.’ He glanced at Anne. ‘You told Tony that you’d named the two characters after your own kids. Bill was William, obviously. And Kitty . . .’

‘. . . Kathryn,’ I said.

‘Harris is your married name, is that right?’

‘Yes.’ Kathryn nodded, suddenly fearful. I guessed that her husband knew nothing of all this.

‘There were plenty of clues. You look like each other. You’ve got the same-coloured eyes. You’ve obviously lived together for a long time, so you talk in the same way. It’s going to be a hot one. That’s how Kathryn described the summer weather when we met her at breakfast. And Anne, you used exactly the same phrase when you asked if you could leave the hotel. They say it’s going to be a hot one, so I might go for a walk.