When she had spoken to Jane Pym, the inspector sent Berry to the car to radio the police station. Her superintendent had promised to contact Customs & Excise and the Drugs Squad to see if they had information on Greg Franks. But now, too, there should be more details on the Louis Rosco case. Claire did not have much faith in her superintendent’s abilities as an investigator but acknowledged that he was a good liaison man. He seemed to have friends in every force in the country. She never asked how he managed it but was willing to use the information he provided.

Berry walked through the house and out into bright sunlight. Swallows were gathering in clouds in the valley and perching on the telegraph wire along the road preparing for the migration south. On a white bench outside the cottage Rose Pengelly was sitting, barefoot and brown legged, like a Gypsy, with the baby at her breast. Unembarrassed, he continued towards the car. In the house the phone rang. Berry thought it might be the superintendent and turned back to answer it, but Roger Pym had already picked up the receiver, and Berry heard him say to no one in particular, “It’s Tim Robertson from Madeira.”

When the sergeant returned to the dining room, he was carrying coffee in big earthenware mugs shaped like flowerpots.

“Miss Pengelly thought we might like this,” he said.

“Well?” the inspector demanded, refusing to be distracted, irritated by his lack of urgency, by the time he had been away. “What have we got?”

“Greg Franks was well known to the customs investigations department,” he said, spooning brown sugar in his coffee. “ They’re a bit upset. They were all set up for a big operation. They hoped he might lead them to the organiser. He was certainly a courier, they say. Probably a small-time dealer, too. They’re interested, of course, in all his contacts and would like to see his diary or address book if we find one.”

“We’ve got to find a home for him first,” she said. “We know he hadn’t been living at his parents’ house for months. That’s why they hired George Palmer-Jones. We can’t trace him by his belongings because apparently they all went overboard when he did.” She drank the coffee in small, polite sips and continued thinking aloud. “Perhaps that’s the significance of the missing bag and equipment,” she said. “ Perhaps the murderer threw it away to stop anyone finding out where Greg had been living. It’s interesting that he was killed after the first serious attempt to trace him.”

“Mr. Palmer-Jones didn’t seem to think he’d have any problem discovering Franks’ address,” Berry said. “ He told me that these twitchers all keep in touch with each other by phone. It was just a question of asking one of them for Greg’s phone number and tracing the address from that.”