“We don’t think you know anything, Ms. Melnic. But if it will help to improve your attitude and general level of cooperation, I can tell you that Mr. Hawkins died in a fire at his home on Saturday night.”

“A fire?”

“Yes. According to all the evidence, it appears to have been a chip-pan fire.”

Zelda shook her head. “I don’t understand. What is a chip-pan fire?”

“It’s just a general term. A chip-pan fire is when someone puts a pan full of oil on the burner to heat up and falls asleep, usually because he’s the worse for drink. It catches fire, and Bob’s your uncle.”

Zelda had read enough and been around English people enough to consider herself fairly proficient in the quirks and oddities of their language—including “Bob’s your uncle”—but she had never heard the term “chip-pan fire.” Who on earth would want to make chips when they got drunk? Were fish and chips so important to them? It was yet another English eccentricity she would simply have to accept.

But Hawkins? She hadn’t known him well, but one passion of his that was hard to miss was his love of gourmet food and fine wine. She had seen the foodie magazines on his desk from time to time, even heard him discussing reservations at well-reviewed new restaurants over the phone. It would hardly be the epitome of snobbishness to assume that Hawkins had probably never eaten fish and chips in his life, let alone that he had owned a chip pan and cooked them up for himself at home. As for his being drunk, as far as she knew, Hawkins wasn’t much of a drinker. Of course, she realized that some drinkers can hide their addiction well, just as a chip-pan fire may not necessarily require the making of chips. She supposed that Hawkins might have had a glass of wine too many and heated up a pan of oil to make tempura, samosas or some such exotic deep-fried treat. It merely seemed unlikely. “Mrs. Hawkins?” she asked.

“Away at her sister’s in Bath for the weekend.”

“It must be terrible for her,” Zelda said.

Danvers inclined his head slightly. “Naturally.”

“Where were you on Saturday night?” Deborah asked.

“As a matter of fact, I was in Croatia. Staying with an old friend. On Saturday night we went down into the village for dinner, then out on the town dancing.”

“Dancing?”

“Why not?”

Deborah shook her head. She looked as if she had never danced in her life. “No reason. And your friend’s name and address?”

“I would rather not say.”

“Oh. Why is that?”

Zelda turned to address her remarks to Danvers. “Her work is secretive and dangerous. The fewer people who know her identity and location the better.”

“Surely you can’t think . . . ? Oh, well, never mind,” said Danvers. “It’s not essential. If you could perhaps produce your flight details and boarding passes, that should suffice for the moment. You understand this is simply for the purposes of elimination?”