When Molly returned to Back Rigg the house was empty. George was on the hill watching the heather being burned. As she walked round the house to the kitchen door she could see his silhouette moving across the fell to join the Land Rover and the small group of men already there. She supposed he was afraid of missing out on some excitement but thought he was wasting time that could be better spent.

It annoyed her that although she knew all the facts surrounding Ursula’s death, all the secrets in the valley, she did not know who had killed her aunt. She could guess, of course, but there was no certainty. George, with his logical mind, might be able to make something of it.

When the knock came on the front door she supposed it would be Joanna, who had read her note and was too impatient to wait until teatime. But when she opened the door it was Eve Theobald, flushed and dusty in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt with a sweater tied round her waist.

‘I’m looking for Jeremy,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like to go to the Cadver. They don’t approve of me. Do you know where he is?’

‘He’s on the hill watching the heather burning,’ Molly said. Then, sensing the girl’s anxiety, ‘He’s quite safe. My husband’s with him too.’

‘I ought to talk to him,’ Eve said. ‘There’s something he should know.’ She bent double so her hands were on her shins and breathed deeply. ‘I’m terribly unfit,’ she said. ‘I hoped to get a lift but in the end I had to walk most of the way.’

‘Why don’t you come in and have some tea?’ Molly said. She opened the door wide so Eve could see the dark hall. ‘Perhaps I can help.’

Eve hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She thought that she would end up telling everything once she was in the kitchen drinking tea with the kind old lady. She remembered what her friends in the Animal Rights Group thought of traitors. ‘I don’t know,’ she said again.

Molly said nothing. She left the door open and walked through the house to the kitchen. Eve heard the splash of water into a kettle, a clatter of spoons. It would not hurt, she thought, to rest for a few minutes and have some tea. Then she could go on to the hill and find Jeremy.

But as soon as she came into the kitchen she began to talk.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said in the end, when she had told it all. ‘I’m no good at secrets. This really screwed me up. I expect you think I’m really silly.’

‘No,’ Molly said. ‘Not silly at all.’

‘What will you do now?’

‘I have to go out. I want you to wait here for me. Will you do that?’

Eve nodded.