“Bob always felt that the first part of his life had been about making money. Then he spent some time in Nigeria and claimed he had this Road-to-Damascus moment which made him decide to spend the rest of his life helping people. Like John Newton.” Derek shot me a wry look. “Guess we know what hymn will be played at his funeral.”

“I guess.”

He let out a sigh. “Bob may have liked the good things in life, got a taste for it during the early part of his life, I suppose. But in his later life he did a lot of good, raised a lot of money for a lot of charities.”

“What did he do before?”

“He worked for an investment bank.”

“Right.” I placed my hand on the cream leather seat.

There must have been some judgement in my tone because Derek defended him. “He didn’t just set up the Grace charity, you know, he worked for other charities before that. There are hospitals that wouldn’t be able to stay open if it wasn’t for the money that Bob raised, machines that have saved lives that couldn’t have been bought.”

I nodded mutely. Derek Jameson wasn’t in the mood to consider any criticism of his dead brother, and that was understandable. He’d only just learned of his death. But certain facts remained. Bob had been keeping secrets from his wife, Jude Burns didn’t like him and at least one person had wanted him dead.

We passed white stones on either side of the road bearing the words Magic Road. Molloy and I had missed them the night before coming from the other direction, although they wouldn’t have been visible at night anyway.

Derek asked me about them, and I explained the optical illusion for which the road was famous. It was said that if you stopped your car at the white stone, and released the handbrake, your car would appear to be rolling uphill. I’d never tried it – it had always seemed rather eerie to me. But as I related it to Derek, I managed to get, if not a smile, a brief lightening of expression for my trouble.

“I wonder if it would work with a bike.”

“I don’t know.”

“It looks like a good tough cycle route,” he said. “Maybe we should have planned to come through here after all.” Then his face fell again as if he’d briefly forgotten why we were here.

Five minutes later, we drove between the heather- and rock-covered banks and the grotto appeared on our right.

“It’s just here,” I said quietly. “Pull in here on the left, there’s a parking area.”