In the dark, Macalvie smiled. He had worked that out. He looked ahead at the lighted panes of the hotel, grown larger now, the building more defined. “So what about comings and goings? The only way to the islands—to any of them—is the way I came, the last part by boat, right? No heliport, for instance?”

“On St. Mary’s there’s one that’s the most used. Then there’s one on Tresco. In any event, you’d have to take the launch to get from either of those places to Bryher.”

“In the last, say, thirty-six hours, has anyone used the launch?”

“No one. No one’s left.”

“Then we’re looking for either a very strong swimmer—though God knows how one could swim through those waters … Is it possible?”

“Possible? Anything’s possible, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it.”

“Or,” said Macalvie, watching the windows, behind which he could make out curtains and behind the curtains, moving figures, “the killer dropped from the sky.”

“Or,” added Whitten, “is still here.”

“I was getting to that.”

2

“You said it was a kid who found the body.”

“Two kids, actually: Zoe Noyes is the older one. Lives with her sister—I guess Zillah’s her sister—and their aunt, well, great-aunt to be precise. Cottage is over there.” Whitten nodded toward someplace in the distance, east of the bay.

“Then I guess we should start there,” said Macalvie.

Whitten walked over to say something to one of his men, as Macalvie told Gilly Thwaite where he was going.

“I suppose she was pretty scared, was she?” Macalvie said as they set off.

“The impression I get is there can never be enough dead bodies for Zoe.”

“Swell,” said Macalvie, thinking maybe he wouldn’t have to do all of the hide-and-seek and cajoling it usually took to get the girl to come out from behind her aunt’s skirts.

Far from having to be cajoled out of hiding, Zoe was all over the house, dragging another chair into the front room where Whitten and Macalvie stood, as if one of them might bolt if there wasn’t a chair. Then she ran to get a footstool from its position by the fire.

On the hearth lay a big gray cat, bunched up, paws curled in under its chest. At first Macalvie thought it was sleeping, then decided it was spying, since he could see golden slits just beneath the lids.

Hilda Noyes, the aunt, told Zoe to stop fussing and to sit down if she must. It would clearly have been useless to tell Zoe to leave the room—to go to her own room or anywhere out of sight and sound of the police. Zoe knew a murder when she saw one, or its aftermath, and knew also that she was the star attraction.