He opened it. Sylvie’s room was a similar size to ours but with more modern furniture, an abstract painting on the wall, and two single beds. Her suitcase was standing beside the wall, unopened. As my eyes traveled toward her, I noticed a twist of something silver lying in the middle of the yellow carpet. But I didn’t have time to mention it.

Sylvie was lying on her back, one hand flung out. When I had first seen her I had thought her small and silent. Now she was smaller and dreadfully still. I felt Mark push past me, entering the room.

“Is she . . . ?” he began.

“Yes,” Tim said. “She’s asleep.”

“I don’t think so, Tim,” I said.

Eric went over to her and took her wrist between a pudgy finger and thumb. “She has no pulse,” he said. He leaned over her. “She’s not breathing.”

Tim’s mouth fell open. “Do you think she’s ill?” he asked.

“She’s dead, Tim,” I said. Two murders in one day. And it wasn’t even Tim’s bedtime.

Libby burst into tears. It was getting to be a habit with her. At least Brenda didn’t scream again. At this close range, I’m not sure my eardrums could have taken it.

“What are we going to do?” someone asked. I wasn’t sure who it was and it didn’t matter anyway. Because right then I didn’t have any idea.

*  *  *

“It might have been a heart attack,” Tim said. “Maybe the shock of what happened to Rory . . .”

Darkness had fallen on Crocodile Island. It had slithered across the surface of the sea and thrown itself over the house. Now and then a full moon came out from behind the clouds and for a moment the waves would ripple silver before disappearing into inky blackness. Tim and I were sitting on our four-poster bed. It looked like we were going to have to share it. Two posters each.

Maybe it had been a heart attack. Maybe she had died of fright. Maybe she’d caught a very bad case of flu. Everyone had their own ideas . . . but I knew better. I remembered the twist of silver I had seen on the carpet.

“Tim, what can you tell me about Sylvie Binns?” I asked.

“Not a lot.” Tim fell silent. “She was good at chemistry.”

“I know that.”

“She used to go out with Mark. We always thought the two of them would get married, but in the end she met someone else. Mark ran all the way around England. That was his way of forgetting her.”

Mark Tyler had been the last person to see Sylvie alive. I wondered if he really had forgotten her. Or forgiven her.

“Maybe she was ill before she came to the island,” Tim muttered.

“Tim, I think she was poisoned,” I said.

“Poisoned?”