Luke grimaced. ‘He’s only at Alloway? Does he want help? I could drive—’

‘No, he says he’ll be fine, just late. The mechanic’s draining the tank and cleaning out the whole system as we speak, but it could take a while. How did the trail-making go?’

‘Slowly.’ Tilly sawed at the pastry, gave up and concentrated on the quiche’s filling. It was surprisingly tasty. ‘The vegetation on that hill could out-stubborn a mule. A really, really pig-headed one. My arms will never recover.’

‘Course they will.’ Luke shovelled in a mouthful of quiche, case and all, and chewed. ‘Right then, Sophie, I think I oughta head out to the cave and catch a couple of those bats. It’ll save a heap of time if Leary can take live specimens back with him. You know how these things go. They never allow enough time for the trip, which means they want to leave almost before they get here.’

‘It’s an idea,’ Sophie agreed. ‘Just how did you plan on catching them though?’

‘Same as last time. That was probably pure luck, but you never know.’ He laid his fork down. ‘What about that birding net we found that time? That’d work. Any idea where it’s got to?’

Sophie shook her head. ‘That’s history. Matt got rid of it last year, along with the old trawling net. Said he was sick of falling over them. I suppose they were in his workshop and it wasn’t as if we were ever going to find the owners of them to lay charges against.’

‘Pity,’ Luke said. ‘Never pays to chuck stuff out. That man’s just too damn tidy for his own good. Well, for mine, anyway. Back to plan A then – it’ll have to be the hat. We’ll need to find a box to put the critters in. You up for it, Tilly?’

‘Yes, of course. And I have a shoebox, one that opens at the end. That should do.’

‘Great.’ Luke concentrated again on his food. ‘Soon as we’ve finished, we’ll head off then.’

Driving out half an hour later with the shoebox on her lap, Tilly wondered uneasily whether Matt’s reported mood was due to discovering his cache of money missing. Never given to small talk, he seldom interacted with the campers, so Sophie’s supposition about the river seemed a little unlikely. But would he return tamely to work if he had realised it was gone? On the other hand, what else could he do? No man in his right senses would risk entering the river to investigate. He might, she supposed, grapple for it with a hook on a pole. Perhaps he was doing that now, but the Nutt was a strong force and you couldn’t reasonably expect that anything landing in its muddy depths wouldn’t, sooner or later, be swept away.