“But someone would have had to clean up the blood,” Belinda said. “You can’t stab somebody in the bath and not have a lot of blood around.”

I nodded agreement. “Mrs. Mannering cleaned up that bathroom,” I said, “but that was the next morning. If it was Rose who killed him, she would have had plenty of opportunity to dispose of bloody towels before the police checked bathrooms. There was what looked like a wet towel on the bonfire. I didn’t have a chance to see if there was any blood on it.”

“We’re never going to be able to prove anything, are we?” Belinda said in a small voice. “We can throw ideas around all we like, but there is absolutely no proof. If Rose killed him, then it’s only natural that her fingerprints would be everywhere in the house. And apparently nobody has come forward to say they saw anything.” There was a silence. The clock on the wall ticked loudly. “I was awake all last night, lying on that hard bed. Trying to make sense of things. And you know what kept going through my mind? The only thing that links the three of us was Colin.”

“Colin? The boy who drowned all those years ago?”

She nodded. “We were all partly responsible for his death.”

“But it was an accident. You didn’t know he couldn’t swim. And you were just a child, following older children. Nobody could have thought you were responsible.”

“I suppose not,” she said. “Although, according to Tony, Jonquil did say later that she knew he couldn’t swim.”

“And how many years have gone by? Twelve? If someone in his family wanted revenge, why wait this long?”

“Because we weren’t in the same place before?” Belinda said. She sighed. “I know, it’s a stupid thought and I don’t know why I came up with it. But at this moment I’m willing to grasp at straws.”

“What was his last name?” I asked. “The least we can do is see if any member of his family has been in the area.”

“I can’t even remember that.” Belinda stared out past me. “An interesting name. Different. Huckleberry? Something like that.” She waved a finger excitedly. “Hucklebee, that was it. Colin Hucklebee. I remember Jonquil making some sort of chant about it and Colin going red. They liked to tease him.”

“And you?”

“I was sort of a background player. I suppose I went along with it. Jago was the only one who stood up for Colin.”

“Jago? He’s—” I started to say something, then remembered I was sworn to silence.

“He’s what?”

“Remember you thought he was up to no good?” I said. “That night he came to the cottage he was out checking his lobster pots because someone had been helping themselves.”