“That’s a good question.” She looked meaningfully at the manager, who raised an eyebrow.

“Seriously,” Kane said. “I don’t understand.”

The customer turned again on her stool.

“His mum’s an American general. He lives on the US base. So he’s protected.”

“Though maybe not forever,” the manager said.

“Why not?”

“There’s only so much evidence they can ignore.”

More people came in before Kane could get her to expand on that. It took Kane a second to recognize the man who’d given him a lift from the airfield the previous night. He was accompanied by a woman of a similar age in loose cotton clothes and sandals. The man looked at Kane. Kane raised his hand in greeting and the man nodded back hesitantly, removed his cap and wiped the back of his arm across his brow.

The four islanders spoke together quietly. Kane heard the name Lauren being repeated. Will she? . . . Could she? . . . A Lauren Carter came up in police reports as the girl Petra had been intending to visit the night she went missing, a “best friend.” Her father worked as an RAF vehicle technician, Mum helping as a teaching assistant at the school. Lauren was the second girl in Rory’s photographs, Kane felt sure.

When eventually the postal worker and his companion left, Kane gave it a minute, then went up and paid.

“Seemed like they had news.”

“Maybe.”

“You said there was only so much evidence they could ignore.”

“That’s right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone might have seen what happened. Another girl.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Question is if she has the courage to say.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

The woman in white fanned herself violently.

“Because the murderer is still on this island with her. Still at her school. Because last night he was out looking for her. You saw him. You see what’s going on?”

Kane stopped in the doorway before stepping into the white heat, put his shades on, heard the women behind him.

“Of course they were together. They always were.”

“Inseparable.”

“The three of them. Always.”

Lauren Carter, Kane thought, walking back through the village. The police had been confident that Petra never made it to Lauren Carter’s house, because it would have meant her passing the community center, which had an exercise class outdoors between five and six p.m., and no one saw her.