“She could have turned to us,” he shouted. “She had only to pick up a phone and we would have helped her. Why didn’t she do that?”

Why didn’t I? Elspeth asked herself. She had asked the same question a hundred times. Tears began to fall down her cheeks and she had to compose herself before she went in to join her parents.

George found it very difficult to persuade Elspeth to allow him to speak to Ben alone. She was happy for him to see Ben, but she wanted to be there, too. Ben seemed to be a peculiarly polite boy. He stood and listened patiently while the adults discussed him. The other children had run home, or up to Kell to watch the last of the dipping. At last Ben interrupted:

“There’s no need to worry, Mummy,” he said. “I’ll be good. I won’t chatter.”

Reluctantly Elspeth went back to the post office. They watched her go.

“She does fuss,” Ben said. “There’s no need.”

“You gave her a scarf for a present,” George said. “Can you show me where you found it?”

“Of course,” Ben said. Then: “It wasn’t stealing, was it?”

“No. But it did belong to someone else. Can’t you remember seeing Mary wearing it?”

“I do now that you’ve told me, but I didn’t when I found it. I just thought that it was pretty.”

The boy started walking along the road towards Kell and the harbour.

“I didn’t go straight to school yesterday after I left home,” he said. “ Mummy wasn’t there and Grandpa and Grandma are always busy in the mornings, because they have to be ready to open the shop. I played by myself instead.”

“Where did you play?”

“In here.”

They had come to the derelict croft where George had heard voices the morning before. “ I came after school too, when everyone else went to watch the Ruth Isabella in. I pretend that it’s my house,” Ben said. “ I come here quite often.”

“You found the scarf in here?”

“Yes. In the morning. I left it here till after school.” Ben led the way in through the hole in the wall which had once been a door.

“Was it hidden?”

“No. It was caught on this nail. It looked as if it had been left here by accident.”

Part of the door frame was intact and a bent nail stuck from the rotting wood, at about waist height. If someone had left the building in a hurry, George thought, they might not have noticed that the scarf was left behind. The boy stood quietly by his side. It seemed not to occur to him that he might not be believed.

“What time did you get up on Saturday morning?” George asked suddenly.

“Late,” Ben said, “because I was so late going to bed after the party.”

“What time is late?”