“And isn’t that what you felt for me?” he lashed out. “ Poor old Gerald. No friends. So social graces. Isn’t that what you thought? But you wouldn’t let me go to bed with you.”

“Gerald,” she said, “I’m sorry.” But as she was talking to him, she was looking outside, towards the shore.

“You should grow up,” he shouted angrily. “We’re not all lame dogs to be petted.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, but the repeated apology only irritated him, and then he did ask the question that had been singing in his brain as a way of getting back at her.

“Where did Greg Franks come into all this?” he demanded. “What did you mean last night when you said he was upsetting things?”

She went suddenly white, as if he had slapped her face.

“Nothing!” she said, in a whisper, looking for the first time at Molly beyond the open door. “ I didn’t mean anything.”

Roger Pym waited until the inspector returned to Heanor before he sought Molly out. Until he sat beside her, she had not realized how much pressure he was under. She had thought he was wrapped up in the new bird, but perhaps, after all, that was only a distraction. She had met him with George and had always dismissed him as insensitive, mindlessly competitive. She knew he taught physical education at a large comprehensive school on a council estate outside Bristol and thought him obsessed with his own fitness and his own list. He would be the worst kind of gym teacher, she thought, concerned only to prove that he could run faster, and longer distances than the boys in his charge. Now she saw he was getting older and thought that as it became less easy to compete, he would grow vicious. When he sat beside her, he was sweating. Beads of perspiration clung to the hairs on his arms, and he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“This is terrible,” Roger said. “I don’t know what the school will say about my being mixed up with the police like this. Or the parents.”

Roger’s previous descriptions of the parents at his school had been a little prejudiced. They were feckless mothers who either drank or were on the game, and unemployed, illiterate fathers. Neither, Molly thought, would be particularly concerned about Roger Pym. She said it must be very worrying.

“There was that ridiculous argument about the list,” Roger said. “Someone must have mentioned it to the police. I hope too much isn’t made of it.”

“Did you ever find out what Greg’s list was?” Molly asked. It was a mischievous question. She did not expect a response.

“No,” he cried, his hands shaking. “ No. Of course not.”