Fry was genuinely curious to know. She didn’t think Pauline Outram looked much like a secret mistress. Not even the right age, really. A fifty-one-year-old man going through a mid-life crisis was likely to go for someone about half his age. Or so she’d heard. But Pauline must be in her late thirties, and there was nothing sexy or glamorous about her. Nothing about Pauline Outram suggested she’d come here to meet a lover.

But the question didn’t seem easy for Pauline to answer. She looked from one detective to the other, struggling for words.

‘We won’t be shocked,’ said Fry. ‘You can tell us the truth. We only want to locate Mr Clay. It doesn’t matter what your relationship was, as long as it helps us to find him.’

And then it dawned on Pauline what Fry was suggesting.

‘Oh no, you’ve got it wrong,’ she said, shaking her head, that nervous half-laugh setting Fry’s nerves on edge.

‘Are you not having an affair with Michael Clay?’

‘No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not his lover. That’s not why he leased this house for me.’

‘Who are you, then?’

Pauline Outram looked her in the eye, her face calm and serious for the first time. And it was only then that Fry saw the faint family resemblance to Michael Clay.

‘I’m Michael’s niece. His brother Stuart’s daughter.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

BACK AT THE office half an hour later, Cooper went to his PC and Googled the motto on the badge he’d found in Eden View. Forewarned is forearmed. It was a common enough phrase, an old adage that he must have heard his parents use time and again.

Google presented several sources for definitions. ‘Praemonitus, praemunitus. Knowledge of imminent danger can prepare us to overcome it.’ There was even a link to George W. Bush using the phrase in a speech about Iran. Corporate intelligence, cancer research, travel tips on avoiding pickpockets . . . Not much use.

Cooper clicked through three or four pages of links without success, and was about to give up looking when he saw a different reference. It was a book title, advertised by a seller on ABE, the second-hand book dealers’ site. He clicked on the link and found himself reading a description of the book being offered. A history of the Royal Observer Corps, evidently some branch of the British armed forces. Could that be right?

A fresh search and a few more clicks found a picture of the ROC logo. The figure on the badge was apparently based on an Elizabethan beacon lighter, who used to watch the coast and warn of approaching Spanish ships. And, yes, that was the Corps motto: Forewarned is forearmed.