“They were both men.”

“It wasn’t the same man ringing twice?”

“Certainly not.” She was indignant that he should question her competence at information-gathering. She was obviously skilled at it. It was her way of passing the time. “The voices were quite different.”

“In what way?”

“One was la-di-da. Toffee-nosed English. A bit like the lady speaks. The other was local, an islander. Not from Baltasay, though. From one of the outer isles. I’d say he came from Kinness.”

“Would you?” He nodded. “I see.”

“Is that useful?” she asked excitedly.

“Oh yes. Very useful.”

She was thrilled to have helped him.

After he had left the hotel he wondered if he should have paid her for the information. It had not occurred to him. He thought she would feel that she had been adequately rewarded because her afternoon would pass much more quickly and she would have something to chat about to her friends.

What had he learnt? The toffee-nosed Englishman was obviously Jonathan, but who was the other man with the Kinness accent? Perhaps Alec refused to accept that Sylvia was no longer interested in him. That was possible. She was very attractive.

He walked along the quay past the fishing boats, the big oil supply vessels. The town was busy. Children, just out of school, lingered around the harbour, putting off the time of parents and homework. The move to the high school must be hard for the Kinness children, George thought. They had to face the sudden exposure to the bustle and relative anonymity of the small town without the support of their parents. Did they revel in the freedom or were they dreadfully homesick? He remembered Will’s resentment at being dragged back to Kinness. He at least had been happy to leave the island. Wouldn’t everything have been different if Mary had been allowed out to Baltasay, too? She would have had friends of her own age. More stimulating school work. There would have been more to think about than adult secrets.

George walked to the telephone box by the ferry office and phoned the library to find out whether it would still be open that evening. He had, after all, come to Baltasay to use the library, but it was in the same building as the museum and he preferred to wait until Sylvia had finished her visit to the art exhibition before he went there. He did not want her to see him. A soft-spoken, elderly lady told him the library would be open until eight.