“The owners are gone for a bit. Holiday in the Virgin Islands. They left a Mrs. Gray in charge. Quite capable, she seems to be. Didn’t go bonkers at the news of a body on her doorstep, practically.”

“Any joy there? I mean amongst the guests?”

Whitten shook his head. “No one recognized her. Of course, with all that stuff webbing her face …? Anyway, it’s impossible at this inning to know who’s telling the truth, who isn’t.”

Inning. Macalvie liked that. “Is it your coroner’s theory that the body had drifted there from somewhere else? One of the other islands, say?” Macalvie had stopped to run his finger round inside his shoe to get out some of the sand.

“Oh, no. Listen: you can do much better on this sand if you just take your shoes off. That’s what I do. I mean, when nobody’s around.”

They both looked a little furtively at the hotel ahead and the small band of police behind. Between, the little stretch of beach glimmered in the moonlight like crushed pearl.

“More fun, too,” said Macalvie, taking his socks off also.

Whitten shoved his socks into his shoes, tied the laces together, and hung the lot over his shoulder.

They continued up the strand, the sand a balm to Macalvie’s tired feet. “You’re right; it is nice. I’d forgotten what it felt like—” Then he realized he’d forgotten because he’d tried to forget those long-gone summers with Maggs and Cassie. Twenty years and it still had the power to stall his feet, to nail him to the spot.

Whitten stopped too. “Commander Macalvie? Are you all right?”

“What? Yeah. Yes. I’m okay.” They walked on. It was the mention of the little girl who appeared to have found the body that had started it, he knew. Knowing he was going to have to talk to a little girl. He was not good with children. He seemed only to be able to do it if he got belligerent. There had been that child on Dartmoor, Jessica. He still remembered her, and the memory actually made him smile.

Then the memories swam back again: himself, Cassie, Maggs. Maggie. She had been so beautiful. Where was she now? Was there anywhere in the world you could go once your child has been murdered?

He shook his head, as if to get the sand out of that, too, and said, “You said the body couldn’t have drifted into this bay from somewhere else.”

“I’m pretty sure not. Well, you see Hell Bay. The force of the waves and wind—I don’t see how a body could have gotten in. Even the waves pile up there along the promontory.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“Which means that she was killed here.”