Tonight there was a private view at the gallery, Breda Hansard, Saul’s wife, had told Charlie. The windows were so heavily misted that you could hardly see the pictures on display. As Charlie walked in, she was hit by the competing smells of wine and sweat. Now she could see the paintings; they were of local scenes, made prettier by unrealistically bright colours and what looked like pieces of gold tin-foil stuck to each one to represent the sun, or yellow flowers growing beside the road. Twee. Just the sort of thing the people of Spilling were bound to love.

Saul saw Charlie, and broke off from the group of people he was talking to. ‘I’m glad they sent you,’ he said. ‘Let’s go through to the back.’

‘Glad who sent me?’ Charlie pulled off her coat and draped it over her arm. The gallery was uncomfortably hot with the thick, moist heat that could only be generated by too many people crammed into too small a space.

Saul hadn’t heard her, so Charlie repeated her question.

He looked puzzled. ‘You’re not here because I phoned?’

‘No. Who did you phone?’

The back turned out to be a large room that might have belonged to an inspired but undisciplined child with artistic leanings. Marker pens were scattered everywhere, on every surface and on the floor; Charlie’s foot rolled on one as she walked in. There were large sheets of white cardboard with paint splashes on them leaning against walls, paintings both framed and unframed in tottering piles, aerosol paint cans with dried paint dribbles down their sides that had spilled on-to the table, tissue paper, mainly torn, occasionally screwed up into uneven balls, wood shavings, glue . . .

‘I wanted to talk to someone,’ said Saul, fiddling with his red braces, the same ones he always wore. ‘I’ve had all sorts of police in and out yesterday and today, asking me questions. They wouldn’t answer any. I was worried. I think some people I care about might be in trouble, or missing, and . . .’

‘Would those people be Ruth Bussey, Aidan Seed and Mary Trelease?’

Saul looked satisfied, briefly, then anxious. ‘You’re also here to ask about them?’

‘Unofficially.’

‘Mary Trelease isn’t a person I care about,’ he said thoughtfully, as if reluctant to declare himself unconcerned. ‘Though of course, I wish her no harm. She’s a very strange lady. Difficult. I lost Ruth because of her. You know Ruth used to work for me?’

‘Ruth told me about her row with Mary. It happened here, didn’t it?’

Saul nodded.

‘Did you see it?’

‘Only the end of it. That was bad enough.’

‘What exactly happened?’