“I want to talk to you,” George said. “Get your coat. We’ll go to the seawatching hide.”

“No,” Jerry said. “Not there.”

“Yes, there. It’s one of the only places on this damned island where we can be sure of not being overheard.”

They went out into the rain. It was icy and seemed to pierce the skin. They bent forward to shield their faces from the rain and because the rocks were slippery and they needed to watch where they were walking. They did not speak. In the hide they set up their telescopes, but they did not use them. Jerry looked over the sea occasionally with his binoculars, but George Palmer-Jones made no pretence at birdwatching. He talked.

“I know that you had an argument with Pamela. I know that she wanted to see Charlie. I need to know what it was all about. She told me that she’d been to see him on the night of the fire.”

“Did she?” He seemed hardly to have heard. “ I still can’t believe that she’s dead. I saw her there last night, but I still can’t believe it. It was different with Charlie. He was always so strange and eccentric, it seemed almost natural that he should die in that melodramatic way. But she was quite ordinary. She seemed self-confident and self-possessed, but underneath she was rather unhappy. When Charlie died I could think: At least it wasn’t a complete waste. At least the island’s safe. I suppose that it was wrong to think like that, but I kept imagining the observatory turned into a luxury hotel, yachts moored out here by the hide. It could have happened so easily. Then Charlie was killed and it was horrible, but there was a relief too. Because we’d still be able to come here. But with Pam it was a complete waste. She had two children, you know …”

Palmer-Jones felt that he had let Jerry ramble for long enough.

“What was the argument about?”

“We had been ringing on the Friday, the Friday before Charlie went away for the week. It was early in the morning, just as it was getting light. We’d walked over very early, some time before the tide. We were sheltering in the cove, just below the Wendy House. I had my arm round Pam. We must have looked very … intimate. Then Charlie appeared. He had come down the steps and was on his way over to the mainland. We were surprised. He didn’t usually walk. I suppose he didn’t want to disturb John so early in the morning. He said: ‘My, my, what a naughty girl you are, Pamela. What would my big brother say?’ in that joking, high-pitched voice of his. Then he walked over the shore. Pamela was worried that he really would tell her family.”

“Do you know where he was going?”

“I assumed that he was going to see Ernest or Laurence. Because of what he’d said about his big brother. That was the impression I got.”