He walked down the high street to the bar he had passed. Inside it was noisy and rough. It made no pretence than to be other than a place to drink. It suited him. He stood at the bar and drank one large scotch after another until closing time. Then, as straight as a sergeant major, he walked back to his landlady’s cottage. He opened the door quietly, and by the time his landlady heard his footsteps on the stairs and came from the kitchen to offer him tea, he was in his own room.

Chapter Twelve

George woke the next morning with the image of Elspeth’s face. He had drunk himself to sleep but he could not forget it. There were household sounds—a grate being riddled, pans, a gurgling cistern. He got up. The weather had changed. There was low cloud and drizzle and he could not see the harbour.

Downstairs the landlady was surprised that he was up so early. He accepted tea from her, but no breakfast, paid her, and left.

The police station was a square building of grey stone near to the quay. It would have been the harbourmaster’s office or a chandlery. It was like all the other square grey houses in the street. At the desk a policeman was reading a newspaper and seemed surprised to see him, too.

“I’d like to see Inspector Johnson,” George said, naming the officer who had come to Kinness.

The constable took his name and asked him to wait. He returned almost immediately and showed George up some stone stairs and into an office.

Johnson stood up and held out his hand. He was clearly ill at ease and embarrassed.

“It’s good of you to come in to see me, sir,” he said. “We missed you on Kinness yesterday.”

He motioned to George to sit down. The next words came out all together.

“I hope I didn’t seem rude when we met on the island,” he said. “I didn’t know who you were then, you see. I read your textbook on interviewing techniques when I was at training school. Very useful I found it.”

George ignored the flattery. He wanted to say that the fact that he had once worked for the Home Office should make no difference. The policemen had known the facts and should have made a sensible and logical reconstruction of events. It’s a pity you didn’t take more notice of my chapter on “listening to witnesses,” he wanted to say. But that would not have been constructive.

“As you seem to have been checking the background of your suspects,” he said, “you’ll know about Elspeth Dance.”

“Yes.” The policeman looked awkward. “She was charged with battering her child last spring and found not guilty. But that was quite a different sort of case. I don’t see how it can be relevant to this.”