She found the envelope of photographs in the filing cabinet in his study. It was locked, but she knew where he kept the key. She had not known that they would be there, but it had not taken her long to find them. She did not look at them immediately. She made a cup of coffee and sat with it and the envelope in the conservatory. The house was near to the sea, but there was not much to see through the glass—a line of dunes, a bank of marram grass. She was glad that she could not see the water. On such a stormy day, that would have disturbed her.

She sat in the most comfortable chair, which Paul usually took, and opened the envelope. The photographs were all of the same girl, who was still, almost, a child. There was nothing pornographic about the prints. In some, the girl was wearing a swimsuit, but in most a pretty dress and sandals. In two, she was posed selfconsciously in school uniform. Mrs. Derbyshire returned the photographs to the envelope. She must remember to replace them in the filing cabinet before Paul came home. It seemed to her that nothing had changed. He had been hiding photographs of young girls since they had married. That was why he needed her so much to take care of him. So why, in the last month, had he been so frightened?

PC David Martindale was in love, wonderfully, neurotically in love. He drove the Land Rover off the island towards the mainland, following the tyre tracks made that morning, and thought about Rachel. It was as if the corpse in the canvas bag, the men talking shop in the back of the Land Rover, were part of a hazy dream. He thought of work only as an obstacle to seeing Rachel. Savage had told him that he would probably have to stay the night on the island, and he had arranged to take her out for the evening. He would leave a message at her office. She would understand. He was aware suddenly of a small crowd of people on the quay. They were blocking the path and he shouted at them to move. He yelled Savage’s message to the reporters without waiting for any response. Ghouls, he thought, and the business which had seemed so exciting when they had raced over the sands earlier in the morning now seemed squalid, a melodramatic nonsense.

Perhaps I’m in the wrong job, he thought, and leaving the others to deal with the body he walked away to find a telephone box and to buy food for his colleagues who were still on the island.

Chapter Six

Jasmine Carson sat quite calmly opposite Superintendent Savage. She answered his questions promptly and politely, but he knew that he had failed to impress her. She answered because she wanted to, not because she felt at all compelled by him. He had never met anyone like her before. He had known many formidable women, but none with her control, her detached intelligence.