“All the same,” she said. “ I think that you should tell the police. It’s your duty.”

Ernest sighed. He did hate her self-righteous mood. She had been to some charity meeting, and looked like a well-dressed schoolmistress in her pleated navy skirt and jacket. He wished she would not bully him.

“I thought that you didn’t like Charlie,” he said patiently. “You never exactly made him welcome.”

“But that’s not the point. I wouldn’t have strangled him. Do you think that Nicholas Mardle did kill him?”

“I don’t know.” It was the least important point. He had not considered it. “Yes, probably. He was very unbalanced. And he was there.”

“In that case, you must tell the police.”

It was fruitless to argue. “Yes Helen. I suppose that I must.”

“Do we know what was in the will?” She spoke casually, pretended not to be really interested, but he was not fooled. She was very interested in money.

“Yes,” he said. “ I know.”

“Well?”

“He leaves the island to his friends at the observatory, and the remainder to the children.”

“Children? What children?”

“He always called them the children, but they’re named in his will. His nephew and niece. Pamela and Jonathan.”

She hid her disappointment with scorn. “Pamela Marshall’s got children of her own and Jonathan is in his final year at university. Hardly a child.”

“It’s quite logical, you know,” he said gently. He still felt a remnant of affection for her. “They are his only younger relatives. If we had had children, I’m sure that they would have been included. Besides, I don’t think that he had much to leave.”

“Well, Elsie will be pleased,” she said, “although I think that she has already ruined that precious brat Jonathan.”

Then she brought her face and voice under control. She always pretended to have no interest in Elsie and bitchiness did not match her image of charitable benefactor.

“You will go to the police this afternoon, Ernest?”

“Yes,” he said. “ Yes. I’ll go.”

But Ernest did not go straight to the police station. He watched Helen drive away in her car then buttoned his sheepskin jacket and started to walk along the promenade towards his office. He did not walk very often and he found the effort uncomfortable. Helen had offered him a lift, but she would have dropped him at the police station and watched him go in. The wind blew straight along the promenade, scattering summer litter and sand. He walked past the new development on the front and saw with satisfaction that all the flats had been sold. The tide was out and in the poor light the stretch of sand and water looked grey, unattractive. Whoever would want to live here? he thought. When I retire I want a bit of sun in the winter. He did not even glance at Gillibry, would never have understood if Jasmine Carson had explained why she had been persuaded to buy one of his luxury apartments.