“But she’s married to Chris,” I said.

“Then there are all the other people who wished him ill online,” Molloy added. “The comment about the snake shedding its skin.” He stared at the floor tiles as if something might be revealed in their cracks.

“Was there anything in the post-mortem?” I asked finally.

Molloy nodded. “Yes. There was.” He took a deep breath. “Bob Jameson died of a heart attack, would you believe?”

My eyes widened. “You’re kidding. So, he wasn’t murdered?”

He shook his head wearily. “God knows. But someone brought him up to Mamore Gap, tied him up and left him there. And brought a snake up there to keep him company. The pathologist is waiting on blood tests to see if he was drugged with anything.”

Outside I climbed into the Mini and Molloy went to his car. He drove out ahead of me, looking tired and downcast in the glare of my headlights.

Chapter Twenty-Two

MONDAY MORNING CAME far too quickly for someone with delayed jet lag. Having fallen asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow at eleven o’clock, I spent the hours between 3 and 6 a.m. wide awake and staring at the ceiling, looking at the various puzzles that had presented themselves over the past few days from every possible angle.

I kept thinking about Molloy’s remark about Bob Jameson’s connections to the people we’d met, and I thought about how difficult it was to get anyone to speak about the dead man truthfully. Not quite a conspiracy of silence but close.

Sometime after six, I fell into a deep sleep only to be hauled out of delicious unconsciousness by a cruel alarm clock at eight o’clock. And now I had a headache, that dull ache that comes from a broken night’s sleep. Coffee was a necessity if I was to stay awake at the office, but the full pot I consumed didn’t help the headache much. And, opening one cupboard after another confirmed what I suspected; I had no food, other than cat food, which I faithfully dished out with water much to Guinness’s obvious disgust.

“I know you prefer milk but I’m all out,” I said to him as he looked up at me expectantly. “Anyway, water’s better for you.”

He remained unmoved. I was back in the cat’s bad books again. I sighed, took a couple of paracetamols, and headed into the office without breakfast.