“How typical of Charlie,” Jerry said with some affection. “ It wouldn’t have been only for the money. He would have loved the idea of it.”

“But Jasmine Carson was appalled.” “How did she find out about Charlie’s plans?” Mark asked.

“Marie, the Todds’ secretary, was one of her ex-pupils. Marie told me that they kept in touch. Savage went to see her last night. She confirmed to him that she saw Jasmine last week. She inadvertently mentioned something of what the Todds were planning, and Jasmine bullied the rest out of her. She was too frightened to tell the Todds about it, and I really don’t think she suspected it had anything to do with the murder. So when Charlie dropped his bombshell on Friday evening, Jasmine already knew about his plans. She knew that he wasn’t being quite honest. And she had had a chance to brood about it. She is a very logical person, and very ruthless. She didn’t have a lot to lose. She is ill, in considerable pain. She weighed up the risk and she took it. And of course she had to act quickly.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Molly said, “what happened this afternoon, and where Nick came into it.”

“After Pam’s murder,” George said, “Savage was convinced that Nick had murdered her and Charlie, because of the way in which the Todds had treated his mother. To be fair, by the time I went to see Savage he had already concluded that he had probably been mistaken. He was prepared to accept my version of events as a working hypothesis, but naturally he didn’t want to make another arrest without adequate proof. So we asked Nick for his help.”

“So when Nick said that he was a vital witness in the police’s case, you were hoping that she would try to kill him,” Mark said.

“Yes, though I didn’t expect her to be so successful. She took the bait, as we had hoped. She believed that Nick did have some information which might convict her. Perhaps she felt that she had nothing to lose when she tried to kill him. Prison will not be so different for her, from her concrete flat on the sea front. Soon she will be so disabled that she would not be able to get to the island to use the observatory. The development would not make any difference to her.”

“But she did stop it all, didn’t she?” Elizabeth said. “ The fun fairs and the hamburger stalls. She saved my home. I feel somehow that I share her guilt.”

“She helped me,” Nick said, “to exorcize mine.”

There was a silence. George wondered if he were talking about the days in prison or the minutes in the water. Through which experience did he feel that he had paid for his desire for vengeance? It was not the time to find out.