“This is ludicrous,” Max said. “You should be talking to Henshaw. He must have been the last person to see my aunt alive. And what about the maniacs in the village who called that meeting yesterday and want to stop the building? What about the lunatic who wrote that letter?”

Ramsay ignored the outburst and stood up abruptly. He felt he had spent enough time with them. In other circumstances he would have muttered something about leaving them alone with their grief. But grief seemed beyond them.

“Thank you for your attention,” he said. “ Please stay in the Tower until one of my officers has taken statements from you. Then you’ll be free to go.”

As he left the room he could sense their resentment.

In the playroom at the top of the stairs the children had finished the jigsaw puzzle and were talking with an earnest intensity that would have surprised their parents. It was a small cluttered room with a bare wooden floor and faded print wallpaper. The toys were mostly old, strange, unlike the bright plastic ones they had at home. There was a fort with carved soldiers and a large metal spinning top. On a trestle table along one wall there was a model railway with peeling papier-mâché hills and houses made of balsa wood. It had belonged to Peter’s father and had been built by Anthony Parry, but Peter had been told that he was still too young to play with it unsupervised.

As Carolyn spoke to him he looked at the trains with longing. It seemed a terrible injustice that he could not touch them, and that thought on top of all his other misery made him cry suddenly. Carolyn watched in frustration as tears ran down his cheeks.

“It’s no good crying,” she said crossly. “ I’m only trying to help you.” She felt so much older than he and knew she would have to take all the responsibility. “ We must sort out what we’re going to tell them.”

“I won’t tell them anything!” he cried, looking up at her. “I promise.” For the first time ever he was frightened of her. He had loved his cousin ever since he could remember, but the violence of her words made him wish she would leave him alone. Yet he still wanted to please her.

“Of course you’ll have to tell them something,” she said. “They won’t ignore us just because we’re children. Not this time. You found the body. The police will want to talk to you.”