George allowed John to escape, and waited until he had disappeared through the kitchen door. Then he walked to the observatory, went in through the main entrance and stood looking at the familiar hall as if seeing it for the first time.

On the opposite wall to the ringing-room door was a long row of coat hooks, underneath them a row of outdoor boots and shoes. He recognized Miss Carson’s massive waterproof cape and her shoes, so sturdy and high round the ankle that they looked like surgical boots. Perhaps they were. Nick and Mark had identical anoraks of an oiled canvas, Pamela Marshall an expensive down kagoul, and Jerry a disreputable parka. His own coat was there and his boots, and the old-duffel coat and wellingtons which belonged to no one, were used by everyone and had been there since he had first visited the observatory.

He walked on through to the common room. Mark was there, still waiting to see Superintendent Savage. He grinned nervously, then retreated again behind his Tom Sharpe novel. He did not seem to be reading it. The log book was on the table in the library. The majority of the entries were in Miss Carson’s hand. The writing was very strong, as if she could only control the pen by pressing hard against the paper. The rest were in Paul Derbyshire’s spiky scribble and John Lansdown’s sloping, left-handed print. On each page there was a record of the weather, the birds that had been seen and ringed, and a list of observers. The first waders of the season had been caught on 20 July, and the observatory had been ringing about twice a week since then. The most recent entry was for Friday, just over a week before, the day before Charlie had left the island for his week away. They had caught three redshank and a dunlin. The only ringers had been Packham and Pamela Marshall.

George Palmer-Jones found Pamela on the west cliffs. She was looking at the seals which were lying in one long line, as if in a bus queue, on a sandbank which was exposed only at low tide. The wind had dropped a little, but the sky was overcast. She was wearing designer jeans and a tight-fitting sweater. She heard him approaching, turned round and smiled.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “about your uncle.”

“So am I,” she said. “I rather liked him. At least he was better than the others.”

“Was he? What are the others like?”

“Oh, rather boring, you know,” she said lightly. “Only interested in making money.”

“Why did you go to see Charlie last night?”

“I didn’t. I know that I was talking about it before supper, but I decided not to go in the end. I just went for a breath of air in the garden. I explained all that to the superintendent.”

“John Lansdown says that you went down the track yesterday evening.”

“Well, he was wrong. It wasn’t me.” She was quite confident. Then, more cautiously: “Did he tell the policeman that he’d seen me?”