‘All the same,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s worth following up, don’t you think?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘It’s worth following up.’ But his attention had wandered back to the newspaper articles in front of him.

When the rest of the team had dispersed she stood behind him. ‘What are all those things?’ There was something strangely obsessive in the way he pored over the newsprint. She saw that his fingers were stained grey from the ink.

‘Peter Markham brought them in this morning.’ Perez didn’t take his eyes off the table. ‘Maria kept the cuttings. All Jerry’s stories. Peter wondered if they might be helpful.’

‘And are they?’

Before he could answer, his phone went. He looked at the number. ‘It’s Peter Markham,’ he said.

‘Then you should take it!’ Again she felt impatient, with the desire to scream at him.

He nodded and pressed the button. She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation and had no idea from the inspector’s expression whether Markham had anything useful to contribute.

‘Well, thank you, Peter. It was good of you to get in touch.’ Perez switched off the phone and sat for a moment in silence.

‘Well?’

‘I’d asked him to check if one of those postcards of the three fiddlers had been sent to the Ravenswick Hotel.’ Perez frowned.

‘And had it?’

‘No.’ He paused for a moment and turned to her with a sudden and brilliant smile. ‘But still relevant maybe, eh? Like the curious incident of the dog in the night. The Sherlock Holmes story. The dog that didn’t bark.’

‘So because the Markhams didn’t receive a postcard, one of the people at the Ravenswick Hotel could be sending them?’ She wanted to yell at him not to speak in riddles, but was so relieved that he was talking to her again, and so seduced by the smile, that she held her tongue.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘That would be one interpretation.’

‘And the other?’

He seemed surprised that she hadn’t grasped the logic of his thinking. ‘That the Markhams aren’t involved in this at all, except as grieving parents.’

‘Is that what you believe?’ She waited and realized how much she valued his opinion.

There was another long silence. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last. ‘I need to speak to Rhona. I’ll be glad when she sails back into the marina at Aith.’

If, Willow wanted to say. If she sails back. But there was no need. He was thinking the same thing too.

She nodded back to the newspaper clippings. ‘You didn’t say what’s so interesting here.’