‘Now,’ Alleyn said to Trehern. ‘Give Inspector Fox your name and address and we’ll hear what you’ve got to say.’

He complied with an ill grace. ‘I’ve no call to be took down in writing,’ he said.

‘I thought you were lodging a complaint. Didn’t you, Mr Fox?’

‘So I understood, sir. Are you?’ Fox asked Trehern, and looked placidly at him over the top of his spectacles. ‘We may as well know, one way or the other, while we’re about it.’

‘Just for the record,’ Alleyn agreed.

‘Not to say a complaint,’ Trehern temporized. ‘Don’t put words into my mouth, souls. No call for that.’

‘We wouldn’t dream of it,’ Fox rejoined. ‘Take your time.’

After an uneasy silence, Trehern broke into a long, disjointed plaint. People, he said, were talking. Wally, he inferred, had been taken aside and seduced with ice-cream. Anybody would tell them that what the poor little lad said was not to be relied upon since he was as innocent as a babe unborn and was only out to please all and sundry, such being his guileless nature. They let him ramble on disconsolately until he ran out of material. Fox took notes throughout.

Alleyn said: ‘Mr Trehern, we meant to call on you this evening but you’ve anticipated us. We want to search your house and have a warrant to do so. If it suits you we’ll come down with you, now.’

Trehern ran the tip of his tongue round his mouth and looked frightened. ‘What’s that for?’ he demanded. ‘What’s wrong with my property? I be’ant got nothing but what’s lawful and right and free for all to see.’

‘In that case you can have no objection.’

‘It’s a matter of principle, see?’

‘Quite so.’

Trehern was staring through the wire enclosure at the Spring where Bailey and Thompson had begun to pack up their gear. ‘Yurr!’ he said. ‘What’s that! What be they chaps doing up there? Be they looking fur footprints?’

‘Yes.’

‘They won’t find our Wal’s then! They won’t find his’n. Doan’t ‘ee tell me they will, mister. I know better.’

‘He was there yesterday.’

‘Not up to thicky shelf, he warn’t. Not up to the top neither.’

‘How do you know it matters where he may have been? Do you know how Miss Cost was killed?’

Trehern gaped at him.

‘Well,’ Alleyn said, ‘do you feel inclined to tell us, Mr Trehern?’

He said confusedly that everyone was talking about stones being thrown.

‘Ah,’ Alleyn said. ‘You’re thinking of the night you encouraged Wally to throw stones at Miss Pride, aren’t you?’

Trehern actually ducked his head as if he himself was some sort of target. ‘What’s the lad been telling you?’ he demanded. ‘He’s silly. He’ll say anything.’