They clinked mugs. The dogs barked in response. Ben and Lotti both laughed, and began to talk about how tomorrow, if the weather was fine, they would begin to sand down the external wood in preparation for painting. When Lotti and Federico left the Sparrowhawk, both she and Ben felt the same warm glow, which came from the knowledge that they had found a true friend and also that maybe their separate plans—to keep Federico, to stay at Barton Lacey, to remain on the Sparrowhawk—were going to work.

For one glorious week, nobody bothered them.

Then the policeman came.

Albert Skinner was not a heroic kind of policeman. He was small and tubby, with pigeon feet that made his bottom stick out, and for the past three years there had been about his shoulders a rather defeated slouch. Pub landlords breaking up fights seldom called for him to help, and children laughed when he tried to move them on from places where they shouldn’t be. Yet for all this, he was not undignified.

And he was conscientious. Stubborn as a terrier, his colleagues said. He had a reputation, once he was on a case, of never giving up.

For the past week, Albert had watched the Sparrowhawk from afar, believing that what Mercy had told him was true and that Sam would soon return to Great Barton. But with the passing days, he had grown increasingly troubled. If this went on much longer, he would write to the War Office himself for the exact date of Sam’s return. Meanwhile, Ben’s lifestyle was neither appropriate, nor strictly legal. A week exactly after Lotti and Ben’s first meeting, he set off to the Sparrowhawk to tell him so.

There is something about seeing a policeman, when you have a secret, which induces an immediate sense of guilt. Ben saw Albert Skinner first. He was on the rear deck, priming the sanded doors, and the moment he saw him Ben was filled with the absolute certainty that Albert knew he had lied about the letter from the War Office and was coming to carry him off to the orphanage.

Lotti, who was sanding the roof, caught Ben’s gasp, followed his line of vision and immediately assumed that Albert Skinner had come to arrest her for stealing Federico, currently asleep with Elsie in Nathan’s workshop but liable to wake up at any moment and give the whole game away. In fact, she had been right when she told Ben that Malachy Campbell wasn’t the sort of person to go to the police. Albert Skinner wasn’t in the least bit interested in Federico. But Lotti had no way of knowing this, and she braced herself for the worst.

Albert approached. Lotti and Ben assumed wholly unconvincing expressions of innocence.

“Good afternoon,” said Albert, who liked to be civil even when imparting bad news.