He turned into the High Street, which rose steeply away from the promenade. The shops were crowded together, the usual shabby seaside mix: gift shops, cafés, one supermarket. There were no tourists. He recognized most of the people he passed.

The office was above one of the shops which they owned. Laurence dealt with the financial side of the operation and he had insisted on an office away from the hotel. Ernest was responsible for more immediate decisions concerning the business. He appointed the staff, inspected properties, was concerned with advertising, marketing. He did not use the place as much as Laurence. Laurence was always there, even on a Saturday.

Laurence had had his lunch in the office and there was an empty plate on his desk. Elsie always made him sandwiches. He had been out once, but only to walk to the paper shop to collect his railway magazine. He was a steam enthusiast. His desk was by the window overlooking the High Street, and he was reading from a computer visual display unit. As he went into the office Ernest switched on the light, and Laurence looked round, blinking. He was a small, dapper man. Helen always said that he looked like a tailor. His face was long in comparison with his body, and Ernest thought he looked more like a character from a children’s television cartoon. He had never seen a tailor with such a big head. They had been together in the office when Elsie had phoned with the news of their brother’s death.

Ernest cleared a space on Laurence’s desk, leaned against it and said: “About Charlie.”

“Yes,” Laurence said. “ I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I can’t concentrate on anything else.”

“We’ve got to decide what we’re going to tell the police.”

Laurence thought. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. I see.”

“It wouldn’t do for them to find out about our visitor last Friday.”

“I’ve told you,” Laurence said, “how I feel about that.”

“But you won’t mention it to the police?”

“No.”

“Helen says that I must tell them about Nick Mardle’s threats to the family.”

“Does she? I don’t think that they were serious, you know. He was very young. But I suppose that we must trust the police to make a proper judgement about that. I don’t think we should make too much of it.”

“No. Perhaps not. He’s an unpleasant young man, all the same. It’s not Mardle that I’m most concerned with. We don’t want the police looking into our affairs. Or the press. Especially the press. Not yet. And then there’s the family. You know that Pamela and Jonathan are beneficiaries under his will.”

“Yes, I knew. Charlie made no secret of it. There’s no reason to keep that from the police. They’ll see the will anyway. I don’t have any anxiety about Jonathan. He wasn’t anywhere near Gillibry. He went up to London last weekend. He wanted to have a few weeks to work on his own before term starts.”