Wexford said Dora was out at her pottery class, but yes, they would love to, and had she had a nice time in Crete?

‘How sweet of you to ask,’ said the bride. ‘No one else has. Thank you, we had a lovely time.’

He had meant it when he said they would love to, but still he didn’t feel very happy about meeting Amyas Ireland again. He had a notion that once the book was published some as yet unimagined Warren or Burden would turn up and denounce it, deride it, laugh at the glaring giveaway he and Ireland couldn’t see. When he saw Ireland again he ought to say, don’t do it, don’t take the risk, publish and be damned can have another meaning than the popular one. But how to give such a warning with no sound reason for giving it, with nothing but one of those vague feelings, this time of foreboding, which had so assisted him yet run him into so much trouble in the past? No, there was nothing he could do. He sighed, finished his chapter and moved on to the farmer’s fictionalized memoirs.

Afterwards Wexford was in the habit of saying that he got more reading done during that week than he had in years. Perhaps it had been a way of escape from fretful thought. But certainly he had passed a freakishly slack week, getting home most nights by six. He even read Miss Camilla Barnet’s The Golden Reticule, and by Friday night there was nothing left but the Cosmos Book of Stars and Calendars.

It was a large party, Mr and Mrs Ireland and their son, Burden’s daughter Pat, Grace and her husband and, of course, the Burdens themselves. Jenny’s face glowed with happiness and Aegean sunshine. She welcomed the Wexfords with kisses and brought them drinks served in their own wedding present to her.

The meeting with Amyas Ireland wasn’t the embarrassment Wexford had feared it would be – had feared, that is, up till a few minutes before he and Dora had left home. And now he knew that he couldn’t contain himself till after dinner, till the morning, or perhaps worse than that – a phone call on Monday morning. He asked his hostess if she would think him very rude if he spoke to her brother alone for five minutes.

She laughed. ‘Not rude at all. I think you must have got the world’s most wonderful idea for a crime novel and Ammy’s going to publish it. But I don’t know where to put you unless it’s the kitchen. And you,’ she said to her brother, ‘are not to eat anything, mind.’

‘I couldn’t wait,’ Wexford said as they found themselves stowed away into the kitchen where every surface was necessarily loaded with the constituents of dinner for ten people. ‘I only found out this evening at the last minute before we were due to come out.’

‘It’s something about the Winchurch book?’

Wexford said eagerly, ‘It’s not too late, is it? I was worried I might be too late.’