Westhall’s voice, raised against the rhythmic boom of the sea, was a hoarse cry. “She doesn’t swim there. It’s here she’d come. She’s out there somewhere.”

Dalgliesh said calmly, “We’ll renew the search in daylight. I think this is where we call a halt.”

But Westhall was again making his way over the rocks, precariously balancing, until he was on the edge of the breaking tide. And there he stood, outlined against the horizon. Glancing at each other, Dalgliesh and Benton leaped carefully over the tide-swept slabs towards him.

Westhall didn’t turn. The sea, under a mottled sky in which low clouds were dulling the brightness of starlight and the moon, looked to Dalgliesh like an unending cauldron of dirty bathwater, heaving with soapsuds which drifted into the crevices in the rocks like scum. The tide was running strongly, and he could see that Westhall’s trousers were soaking and as he reached his side, a sudden full-bellied wave broke over the legs of the rigid figure, nearly knocking them both from the rock. Dalgliesh grasped his arm, steadying him. He said quietly, “Come away now. She isn’t here. There’s nothing you can do.”

Without a word, Westhall allowed himself to be helped across the treacherous stretch of shale and gently urged into the car.

They were halfway to the Manor when the radio crackled. It was DC Warren. “We’ve found the car, sir. She didn’t go further than Bag-got’s Wood, less than half a mile from the Manor. We’re searching the wood now.”

“Was the car open?”

“No, sir, locked. And there’s no sign of anything inside.”

“Right. Go ahead and I’ll join you.”

It was not a search to which he looked forward. As she had parked the car and hadn’t used the exhaust to kill herself, the chances were that this was a hanging. Hanging had always horrified him, and not only because it had been for so long the British method of execution. However mercifully carried out there was something peculiarly degrading in the inhuman stringing up of another human being. He had little doubt now that Candace Westhall had killed herself, but, please God, not that way.

Without turning his head, he said to Westhall, “The local police have found your sister’s car. She isn’t there. I’ll take you back to the Manor now. You need to get dry and changed. Now you must wait. There’s absolutely no point in doing anything else.”

There was no reply, but when the gates were opened for them and they drew up at the front door, Westhall allowed himself to be led in by Benton and handed over to the waiting Lettie Frensham. He followed her like an obedient child into the library. There was a pile of blankets and a rug warming before a roaring fire, and brandy and whisky on the table beside a fireside chair.