“Jim went up the road once to see if Alec was coming. Alec did take much longer than we expected and Jim was afraid that the car might have broken down, too. I’m not sure about Will. He may have wandered off. He seemed very restless and he didn’t help much with the boat. Does that help?”

“I don’t know. Thank you. Did you see anyone on the road as you walked down?”

She shook her head. They began to walk back to the crofts. When they reached the school house, he asked her in for coffee. He was reluctant to let her go. Then he would be alone with the problem, with notes on Mary’s death in his tiny writing in his notebook.

Jonathan was already in the classroom and they were alone in the kitchen, but they did not mention Mary. He thought that perhaps she had reconsidered her offer of help. She did not know what to make of him. He frightened her a little with his politeness, his precise speech, his upright posture. She watched the children run into the playground, then said that she would go. He saw her off sadly. He did not know what to do. He felt powerless to take charge of events. If only there was something conclusive, he thought. If only there was something to prove that Mary had been pushed. If only I had the scarf …

In the windswept playground Ben Dance crouched in a corner and drew on the asphalt with a stone. Grandma had given him breakfast today. He wondered where his mother was. Perhaps she had disappeared like Dad and Mary. He had wanted Dad and Mary to disappear, but he would not want to lose his mother. He felt that he might cry, and frowned to stop himself. He had been a very good boy lately, so there was no reason for her to go. He had felt, secretly, that he must have some magic. He had wanted Dad to disappear for as long as he could remember, and then suddenly he had. When they moved to Kinness, Mary had been so bossy and had spoiled all his games, and he had hoped that she would go, too, in the same way. And she had. That must be some sort of magic. But it would be terrible if it happened to his mother. The bell went and he ran inside, and was distracted from his anxieties by Peter and Jane and First Step Maths.

On her way home Sarah called into the post office. She needed groceries, flour, cheese, stamps. Kenneth Dance was alone in there. He sat on a high stool behind the counter.

“Yes?” he said. He was staring at her.