“What about Mr. and Mrs. Franks?” she demanded. “Don’t you think we owe something to them?”

He looked at her, distant and surprised. “No,” he said. “ I don’t think we do.”

Molly began to clatter mugs and spoons onto a tray. His detachment, his cool assumption that Muriel and Dennis Franks were not worth bothering about, that they were, if anything, less important than his precious seabirds, infuriated her. It was not particularly that she wanted to meddle in the case. She did not need that sort of drama. It was that she worried about him. She knew he was trying to protect himself from the destructive guilt and depression which sometimes haunted him but could tell that the self-deception would not work. She thought he should do something. He should take the risk.

“I think you should go to see the Franks,” she said. “They’ll want to know what happened. It will make things easier for them.”

He looked at her.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “ I should only be in the way.”

“No!” she cried. “Trust me! I’m right about this.” As she spoke, she knew she sounded like a domineering nanny—a type of woman she detested.

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I’ve done enough damage.”

“You can’t think that Greg was murdered because we were there on the Jessie Ellen to look for him?”

“No,” he said. “ Perhaps not.”

But she knew that in a sense he did feel responsible for Greg’s death, and that if he did not become involved in the search for his murderer, the guilt would remain with him forever.

Molly did not like Claire—she thought she was bossy, overcontrolled—but hoped she would force George to look again at what had occurred on the boat. It would be impossible then for him to pretend that the only thing to have happened of any significance was the discovery of a new seabird.

When most of them filed out of the room, Claire felt more competent and businesslike. It was a room she felt comfortable in. If she lived in a cottage in the country, she would probably have decorated it like this, with white walls and stripped pine. It lacked imagination, and she could believe it belonged to her.

“I presume you have a list of all your clients,” she said briskly to Rob.

“Yes,” he said. “I thought you’d need it.” He handed her a typed list. She looked at it quickly.

“Most of the people here give an address in Avon or Somerset,” she said. “Was that a coincidence?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “We’re based in Bristol and do a lot of local advertising.”

“Greg Franks gave an address in Bristol,” she said. “ The police have been there, but his parents say he hasn’t lived at home for some time. You haven’t anything more recent for him?”