‘Let me guess, you’re staying at the Adriatic?’ He took silence for assent. ‘We’re at the Bosnia. Wait a minute, how about making a date for, say, Wednesday? We could all have a trip somewhere in my car.’

The Wexfords, having previous engagements, were able to refuse with clear consciences. They said good night, Wexford nodding non-committally at Nyman’s insistence that they must meet again, mustn’t lose touch after having been so lucky as to encounter each other. His eyes followed them. Wexford looked back once to see.

‘Well!’ said Dora when they were out of earshot, ‘what an insufferably rude woman!’

‘Just very nervous, I think,’ said Wexford thoughtfully. He gave her his arm and they began the walk back along the waterside path. It was very dark, the sea inky and calm, the island invisible. ‘When you come to think of it, that was all very odd.’

‘Was it? She was rude and he was effusive to the point of impertinence, if you call that odd. He forced himself on us, got us to tell him our names – you could see she just didn’t want to know. I was amazed when he called me Dora.’

‘That part wasn’t so odd. After all, that’s how one does make holiday acquaintances. Presumably it was much the same with Werner and Trudi.’

‘No, it wasn’t, Reg, not at all. For one thing, we’re much of an age and we’re staying at the same hotel. Trudi speaks quite good English, and we were watching the children in the paddling pool and she happened to mention her grandsons who are just the same age as ours, and that started it. You must see that’s quite different from a man of thirty walking into a café and latching on to a couple old enough to be his parents. I call it pushy.’

Wexford reacted impatiently. ‘That’s as may be. Perhaps you didn’t notice there was a perfectly clean ashtray in the middle of that table before they sat down at it.’

‘What?’ Dora halted, staring at him in the dark.

‘There was. He must have put it in his pocket to give him an excuse for speaking to us. Now that was odd. And giving us all that gratuitous information was odd. And telling a deliberate lie was very odd indeed. Come along, my dear. Don’t stand there gawping at me.’

‘What do you mean, a deliberate lie?’

‘When you told them we’d seen them on the walls, he said he remembered it and we must have overheard the quarrel between himself and his wife. Now that was odd in itself. Why mention it at all? Why should we care about his domestic – or maybe I should say mural – rows? He said the quarrel had been over climbing a mountain, but no one climbs the mountains here in summer. Besides, I remember precisely what he did say up on the walls. He said, “We can’t find anyone to take us.” OK, so he might have meant they couldn’t get a guide. But “there’s nowhere to land”? That’s what he said, no doubt about it. You don’t land on mountains, Dora, unless you assault them by helicopter.’