‘Free the Budleigh Six?’ I shake my head. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘Not at all. We’ll need to change it now. You’re on bail?’

‘No.’

‘Shame. Have they abandoned the enquiry?’

‘Far from it.’

‘Then we’ll go for Clear the Budleigh Six.’ He nods at the copy beneath. ‘Read on.’

I do his bidding. A meeting has been convened in the public hall tomorrow night. It will start at half past seven and people with an interest in a decent society are urged to attend. Speakers will include a stand-up comic, huge on Channel Four, plus a handful of local luminaries.

A ring on the front doorbell brings Beth into the room. I can always tell when she’s excited because she has a tendency to catch her breath. Just now, she’s hyperventilating.

‘Thank God.’ She throws her arms round me. ‘We were all fearing the worst.’

‘We?’

‘The rest of us.’ She nods at the poster of the Budleigh Six. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m not being a wuss, but I truly don’t. A couple of hours ago I was anticipating the rest of my life in jail. Now this.’

‘They’ve charged you?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Excellent. Join the gang.’

The gang? I’m looking at Mitch. I’m very keen for someone to tease just a splinter of sense from all this clamour, and he’s the only one I really trust. Beth, typically, is about to take over because that’s the role God’s assigned her, but just now I need a little peace.

‘Come with me.’ I take Mitch by the arm. ‘Please.’

We return to the kitchen. I shut the door and wedge a chair beneath the handle. Then I join him at the table.

‘Just tell me what’s going on. That’s all I want to know.’

Mitch nods. He seems to understand. The mass arrests, he says, have gone viral. Social media is firing on all cylinders – Facebook, Twitter, God knows where else – and the developing story has built up a massive head of steam. First the landslip. Then the coffin and the body on the beach. And now an ex-ambassador and a QC, to name but two upstanding citizens of this little town, dragged from their beds and placed under arrest. Not for something of passing interest. But for conspiracy to murder.

‘Have we got this wrong?’ Mitch enquires. ‘Is this something we’ve invented?’

‘Of course not.’

‘We agree on the facts? You were all arrested? Photographed? Fingerprinted? Held overnight? Interviewed God knows how many times? Was that what happened?’

‘Yes.’ I can’t disagree.

‘And you don’t think people, a wider audience, the whole fucking world, doesn’t need to be aware of what’s going on?’