“Not even two murders can spoil it,” she said. “It’s more important, somehow, than that.”

Chapter Fifteen

George and Molly lit a fire in the common room that evening. They burnt pitch pine, which had been washed up at the north end of the island. It burned beautifully, and smelled of creosote and spice. Elizabeth came to find them there. Molly was knitting and George was reading.

Why weren’t my parents like that? Elizabeth thought with pain and resentment.

“I collected the mail from the post office today,” she said casually. “There was a letter for you.”

She would have liked to join them, but it was clear that they wanted to be alone. She went back to the flat.

It had been delivered to the post office by hand. The envelope was addressed in a strong upright script, as if painted with a brush. The letter was short and direct:

“Dear sir, I understand that you are interested in my affairs. If you come to my home tomorrow at 11.00 a.m. I might be able to help you.”

It was signed A. Todd.

“So,” George said, “ perhaps I won’t need Connibear after all.”

“If Albert tells you what is going on.”

“Why else would he want to see me?”

“To find out what you know.”

“Yes,” George said. “ There is that. But there must be something going on. Why else would he have written to me? If he’s curious about me, that’s interesting in itself, don’t you think?”

Molly counted the stitches on the knitting needle.

“You are sure that it all began with the Todds’ business?” “Yes,” George said. “ That’s the one thing I am sure about.”

He went the next day, alone. He left Molly detailed instructions. She tried not to resent them, but watched him off with relief. He had been so restless, so tiresome in the repetition of his orders. John and Elizabeth seemed to have maintained their peace, although Molly thought that Elizabeth had still not given any explanation for her secret trips to the mainland. They spoke very little to each other, as if the peace were fragile and could be shattered by one thoughtless word. She was wearing a loose dress—the first public expression of her pregnancy. John had offered to take George to the mainland in the Land Rover, but George had insisted that he would walk.

Molly walked to the Beacon to watch him go. She stayed there long after he had reached the mainland. It was very calm. The incoming tide crawled in one smooth movement up the shore. There was none of the usual ebb and flow, no breaking waves, no noise.

The lull before the storm, Molly thought, and the cliché dominated her thoughts, so that all day she was tense, waiting for a crisis, and when none occurred, she was left drained, wretched and disappointed.

In one of the houses in Laurel Avenue there was a nursery school. As George got out of the car, the children raced out of the front door to play in the garden. They chased across the grass and threw armfuls of dead leaves at each other. Above the sound of children’s voices a church clock chimed eleven times.