Then he saw the dog. It had not been shot. But Robert, lying beside it, had been dead for hours. He lay on his back and his face and the dog were covered in blood. There was no clean bullet wound. He had been killed, like the geese, with a shotgun. The dog, which had accompanied him everywhere, had broken free from his line and found him at last.

It was a shock, of course, and quite terrible, but George felt relief, too. I was right, he thought. The child was murdered. This proves it.

Chapter Nine

The next morning, as soon as it was light, the police flew in. George borrowed Jonathan’s car and went to the airstrip to meet them. There were the same two officers who had come to Kinness before. They were confused and unhappy—they did not want the responsibility of coming to a decision about violent death—but George soon lost patience with them. They would not agree that Mary and Robert had been murdered. He took them to the body. It was still where he had found it the night before. He had woken Jonathan and together they had covered it with tarpaulin, but they had not moved it.

The elder policeman, the inspector, was near to retirement. He had a mainland accent. Perhaps he had moved to Baltasay for the peace.

“So they were shooting geese here yesterday?” he said.

“Yes.”

“All day?”

“On and off. I heard them in the morning and again in the afternoon at about three.”

The inspector turned to his colleague.

“I suppose it couldn’t have been an accident?”

The younger man had been born on Baltasay.

“It could have been,” he said, “ but someone would have seen it happen. Why not report it? Try to get help for the old man.”

“It couldn’t have been an accident,” George said. “ Robert had information about Mary Stennet’s death.”

This was too much for them. They were convinced that Mary Stennet had fallen accidentally. They had put in their reports to that effect.

“When was the old man last seen?” the constable asked, quickly changing the subject.

“I know that Sarah Stennet was talking to him yesterday morning. We went to his house yesterday afternoon, but he wasn’t there then.”

“That would tie in with the accident theory, then. If he was away from home when the men were up here shooting.”

“He was murdered,” George said, with such certainty and authority that they deferred to him, accepted his judgement.

“It certainly seems that way,” the inspector said, “ but it’s not the sort of decision we can make on the spot. We’ll have to take a statement of course, then report back to headquarters.”

“While you’re doing that,” George said, “you won’t object if I try to find out what happened.”