‘Well, at least Liz’s investigation seems to have been solved off the back of this.’ Matt smiled grimly. ‘She’s unearthed one of the outlets Grove used to distribute the dirty magazines. He’s been supplying them to a village store. They’re going out inside copies of the Telegraph of all things. You would not believe how lucrative hard-copy porn is! One of the vice squad boys told me that pervs are getting twitchy about Big Brother seeing what they are accessing digitally, and they are sourcing out old-style mags that they can keep under the mattress! Liz’ll be chuffed to hear about his arrest.’

Swifty accepted the offer of a coffee and Sam went out to the kitchen. When he had left the room, Swifty moved closer to Will and in an urgent whisper asked his friend if Sam knew about Kate’s demolition job on the Swain garden.

Will nodded. ‘Yes. I told him earlier. Why?’

‘Because Hemmings admitted to killing the cat, messing up the shed, spray-painting the walls, attempted arson and assaulting someone who tried to stop him, but not to running amok in the garden. He swore that act of destruction had nothing to do with him.’

‘Which rather points to my wife, doesn’t it?’ said Will glumly.

‘Rather. But I’m saying nothing about that. No one’s going to take it any further, so I suggest we let sleeping dogs lie. Now, the interesting thing about Grove and his designs on Little Anchor is that he wanted it for more than just that underground room. The chatty Mr Hemmings told us all about the nice little smuggling racket dear Gerald had going on — porn and sex toys from Holland.’

Sam emerged from the kitchen. ‘Kettle on. Come again, Swifty? Smuggling?’

‘Yeah. He’s not just the middleman either. He runs the whole enterprise. He has small boats bringing in merchandise from bigger boats. Real hardcore Dutch porn. Magazines, books, CDs, toys and S & M merchandise. You name it, if it has a market, Grove could get hold of it.’

‘Well,’ exclaimed Matt, ‘that really is history repeating itself. Isaac Berridge did a similar thing, but in his case it was Dutch gin. Smuggling of that kind has been going on for generations, ever since they used to trade Lincolnshire fleeces for genever gin. That’s how I knew about the second loft space. It’s where he hid his contraband.’

It dawned on Will that the lights he had so often seen out in the Wash had probably been signals. ‘So, he really needed Emilia’s cottage. Otherwise he’d have had to move his business to another part of the coast.’

‘Exactly.’