“Pamela Overton must have taken leave of her senses, letting an idiot like you loose on something like this. Now, get out of here before I call the police and have you arrested. And if I ever hear you’ve repeated this insane accusation to anyone else, I’ll have a writ for slander on you so fast your tiny mind will go into a flat spin. Just take yourself out of my house—and don’t ever go near my daughter again, or you will be truly sorry.”

There was nothing for it but to go. She piled into the car, all dignity gone, and found that her hands were shaking. She glanced back at the house to see Barrington silhouetted in the doorway, shouting and waving his fist at her. She shot down the drive and hurtled back down the narrow road with scant regard for the tortuous bends. Once on the main road, she stopped at the first lay-by and lit a cigarette.

She tried to sort through her impressions of the hair-raising interview. She realized she had mishandled the situation and wished she’d brought Cordelia along for moral support. As far as eliminating him was concerned, there had been nothing offered in the way of proof. But unless Anthony Barrington was a first-class actor, Lindsay would stake her life on his innocence. It suddenly dawned on her that that was exactly what she had done by bowling up to his front door alone. It sent a chill through her. “I really have been bloody stupid from the very start over this,” she thought. “Still, I’m further forward than I was. I don’t believe that outrage was faked—and it says something that he admitted to having gone back to the school because he’d changed his mind about the concert. I wonder what made him feel he couldn’t go through with it once he’d steeled himself to coming back? Oh well, I guess I’ll never know.”

She set off for the long drive back to Derbyshire, stopping only to check with the Clarion newsdesk that there were no queries on her copy. While she was in the phone box, on impulse she decided to phone Cordelia and tell her she would definitely be back by nine.

She got straight through to Paddy and was immediately bombarded with questions. She refused to supply any details of her humiliation, promising to fill them in when she returned. Once she got Cordelia on the line she said, “Don’t say anything to Paddy yet, but I’ve just come from an extremely heavy scene with Barrington.”

“I’m not surprised,” she replied stiffly. “What exactly happened?”