‘I’m not talking about me,’ said Simon, blushing, though he manifestly had been, unless Charlie was confused and it was George Fox who’d been watching Grange Hill. ‘Fox claimed he had the light inside him and was therefore incapable of sin—that’s tantamount to claiming he was God. Other people sinned, lesser beings, and when they did he withheld his forgiveness. Adam Sands had a story to prove it. I’ll show you the website, you can read it. There was another prominent Quaker, a man called James Nayler, who got himself in trouble for allowing some of his adoring women disciples to fawn over him in public once too often. He was accused of blasphemy, of parodying Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.’

Charlie rolled her eyes. ‘Some people really need to get over themselves,’ she said.

‘Nayler suffered a range of hideous punishments for what was seen as his blasphemy—he was imprisoned, branded, pilloried, whipped. Fox distanced himself from Nayler when Nayler was at his lowest point, and when Nayler got out of prison, a broken man, when he publicly repented and renounced his follies in several statements, wanting nothing more than to be reconciled with Fox, Fox rebuffed him.’

‘You sound like you’re quoting,’ said Charlie. ‘ “Rebuffed”?’

‘That was the word Adam Sands used. From his tone, he seemed pretty incensed that the founder of this enlightened, peaceful religion that promotes tolerance and forgiveness was a shithead hypocrite—guilty of the very same self-aggrandising attitudes he couldn’t forgive Nayler for. As Sands, Seed ended his contribution to the website by saying, and I quote, “Without contrition and forgiveness, there’s no hope for any of us. How can you want to be part of anything set up by a shitbird like George Fox?” ’

‘Did Crowther reply?’ Charlie asked.

‘Only in the words of Fox himself—a long quote, something about the New Jerusalem and how it’s only available to those who don’t vex and grieve the spirit of God. Those who do are beasts and whores, and they’re covered over by the spirit of error and dispatched to Babylon.’

‘Lovely,’ Charlie muttered. ‘I think I’m starting to get an inkling of what attracted the likes of Crowther and Elton to Quakerism. ’

‘Now can you see why I don’t think Seed’s a revenge-motivated killer? If you’re going to murder someone, why not just do it? Why pretend to be their mate and argue with them on internet discussion forums first?’

‘Here’s a question for you,’ said Charlie. ‘If Seed didn’t kill Crowther and was never planning to, and if he wasn’t her friend or a Quaker either, what the hell was he doing hanging round with her at all? Why did he give her Abberton?’

Simon’s expression darkened. ‘Not a clue,’ he said ungraciously, enraged as always by his ignorance.