‘I’d been night fishing,’ said White. ‘Mr Salton didn’t mind – I asked his permission. He said it was all right so long as I got enough sleep to do my work. He said if I made a good catch I should give him some fish.’

‘How often did you go out?’

‘One night a week, maybe. Sometimes two.’

‘Which boat did you take?’

‘Most times I’d take the work boat,’ said White. ‘The twenty-footer next to the launch out there.’

‘What time did you go out on this occasion?’

White reflected for a moment, then said, ‘About ten o’clock on the night of the ninth. I got back five hours later.’

‘At three o’clock on the morning of the tenth,’ said Hanna. ‘And you saw this boat here. Weren’t you surprised?’

‘Why should I be surprised?’ demanded White. ‘She was where she was meant to be.’

‘But Mr Salton had disappeared.’

White shrugged. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘All right,’ said Hanna. ‘Now, when did you find the boat had gone?’

‘An hour later,’ said White after a long pause.

‘You came back to the boathouse at four in the morning. Why?’

‘I was worried about the work boat. I couldn’t remember if I’d moored her properly so I came back to check. It was one of those things – you know, you leave your house and you can’t remember if you’ve turned off the oven so you go back and check. I cleaned the fish and had a beer and I came down to check the work boat before I went to bed.’

‘And what did you find?’

White said, ‘Is this important?’

‘Very important,’ said Hanna.

White swallowed. ‘I saw the dinghy in the lagoon, heading towards the pass in the reef.’

‘It was night time. Could you see it clearly?’

‘There was a moon,’ said White. ‘It was a good light.’

‘Could you see who was in it?’

‘A woman,’ said White. ‘She was sailed by a woman.’

‘White or black?’

‘Hard to tell. It was a fair way. But she had pale hair.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘Do?’ said White. ‘I did nothing.’

Hanna stared at him. ‘Someone was sailing away in one of your employer’s boats and you did nothing. Isn’t that strange?’

‘What the hell!’ said White. ‘I thought it was Mrs Salton. She likes night sailing.’

III

‘Like extracting teeth one by one,’ said Hanna. We stood by his car and roasted in the sun. White had been sent home under the guard of the patrolman until he could be taken into San Martin for further questioning. ‘I’ve got other things to do right now,’ said Hanna.

‘Such as questioning Mrs Salton?’

‘Maybe.’ He stared over the water at the island. ‘White is a damned fool with a misplaced sense of loyalty. He knew his evidence was important but he was trying to protect Mrs Salton.’