It was nearly five o’clock before they got round to seeing the Bostocks. The interview took place in the kitchen where Kate and Benton were comfortably ensconced in low chairs beside the window while the Bostocks drew up a couple of upright chairs from the table. Before seating themselves they made tea for the four of them and set up with some ceremony a low table in front of the visitors, inviting them to sample Kim’s biscuits, newly baked and hot from the Aga. An irresistible smell, rich and spicy, wafted from the open oven door. The biscuits, almost too hot to handle, thin and crisp, were delicious. Kim, with the face of a happy child, smiled on them as they ate and pressed them not to hold back—there were plenty more. Dean poured the tea; the atmosphere became domestic, almost cosy. Outside, the rain-saturated air pressed against the windows like a fog, and the deepening darkness obscured all but the geometry of the knot garden while the high beech hedge became a distant blur. Inside, all was light, colour and warmth, and the comforting aroma of tea and food.

The Bostocks were able to provide an alibi for each other, having spent almost all the previous twenty-four hours together, mostly in the kitchen or when, taking advantage of Mog’s temporary absence, they had together visited the kitchen garden to select vegetables for dinner. Mog tended to resent every gap in his carefully planted rows. Kim, on her return, had served the main meals and later cleared the table, but usually there had been someone present, Miss Cressett or Mrs. Frensham.

Both Bostocks looked shocked but less distressed or frightened than Kate and Benton had expected, partly, Kate thought, because Boyton had been only an occasional visitor for whom they had no responsibility and whose rare appearances, so far from adding to the gaiety of the community, were regarded, particularly by Dean, as a potential source of irritation and extra work. Boyton had made his mark—a young man with his looks could hardly fail—but Kimberley, happily in love with her husband, was impervious to classic handsomeness, and Dean, uxorious, was largely concerned to guard his kitchen against unwarranted intrusions. Neither seemed especially frightened, perhaps because it became apparent that they had managed to convince themselves that Boyton’s death had been an accident.