Then it was nearly three o’clock and they were all preparing to go out. Elizabeth came from the kitchen to be with them. They drifted, laughing and noisy, into the yard. Molly felt that she could not breathe. She had been drinking too, and the weight of the heavy, black clouds seemed to have settled on her head.

Was anything, after all, going to happen, or would there be an anticlimax, a continuation of the party and the mutual distrust? Then it occurred to her that George might never be able to prove who had committed the murders, and the prospect of his failure was terrifying.

It was a very high tide and the birds were roosting on the island proper because the shore, where they would usually have fed and rested, was covered by water. There were hundreds of birds on the rocks and the grassy slopes to the south of the Wendy House. They were noisy, restless. There were oystercatchers of black and white and orange, heavy grey knot and brown redshank. There was a smell of seaweed, of decay.

They were intent, now, on catching as many birds as possible. John took charge. He sent Nick and George towards the Wendy House. The rest of them were spread along the wall. Molly could see that the plunger, the trigger which set off the net, was positioned right at the easterly edge of the wall, near the edge of the cliff, so that the firer could see round the wall to the birds, without being seen by them. Nick walked through the Wendy House garden and had reached the firing position. George seemed to have disappeared. Molly felt a mounting tension, even a panic. George’s failure to take up his position along the wall convinced her that something had happened. And she was certain that there was something wrong with the cannon. Where was George? He should be here, to prevent a tragedy. What should she do? Should she shout out, prevent the firing from taking place until he arrived? She had promised herself that she would trust him, and he had told her to do nothing, but perhaps there had been an accident, something more sinister than an accident. No one else seemed to have noticed his disappearance. That was not surprising. Each person was crouched now, as John had instructed them, behind the wall, and could only see the individual to the east or the west of him. They were still excited. There was a lot of giggling, stifled. Molly did as she was told, and hid too, leaning against the smooth boulders of the drystone wall. She felt the curves of the boulders against her body as she pressed against it. Elizabeth was about ten yards away on one side of her, Jerry Packham to the other. She did not know how the others had been arranged. She tried to stay calm. I’ve been imagining it all, she thought. They just want to catch some birds to ring them. Nothing can go wrong. John will have checked all the gear. He will know that it’s safe. But she felt the mindless terror and excitement of a child playing hide and seek, as the hunter approaches the hiding place. Then she saw John. He was running, bent double, along the base of the wall. She saw him stop and whisper to Elizabeth. He ran to her, and said: