“And on the moors yesterday,” he went on, ignoring her interjection, “they found what looked like a small boy’s clothing. Wrapped in oiled cloth, to keep it from rotting too soon. That means someone stripped the boy’s body. Took away the clothing that might have made it easier to identify him. That’s planning, Rachel. Someone planned his disappearance!”

“If you found his clothing, you must have found his bones,” she pointed out, desperate now.

“No. I told you, the body had been stripped. If you’re going to that trouble, you don’t leave the body and the clothing in the same hole. It would make no sense, would it? Next point. I have a witness who says that Brian FitzHugh was talking to someone on the beach just before he died. Can you see Olivia trying to make her way down through those rocks? Wouldn’t Brian have gone up to meet her, to save her the effort? Finally, if Nicholas was jealous of Rosamund’s remarriage to Brian, he wouldn’t be eager to see Thomas Chambers move in to fill FitzHugh’s shoes either. And it looked very much as if that could happen. But Chambers lived in Plymouth, not Borcombe. Nicholas couldn’t reach him. He could stop his mother from taking a new husband. In the grave, she wouldn’t betray him again. She was his.”

She backed over to the bed, her eyes still on his face, her own very bleak, her mind listening, whatever her heart was denying. She sank down on the edge of the coverlet, and as she did, he caught that same illusive hint of perfume again, and so did she. Straightening hastily, she moved across the room to the desk instead. As far from the fragrance as she could get. “You can’t prove it!” Rachel told him defiantly. “You can’t prove any of this. And I won’t let you ruin Nicholas’ memory with speculation and doubt. Olivia was famous. They won’t let you tear her down either, wait and see. You’ll end up ruining yourself. But I’m going to find out what drives you so hard, and I’m going to stop you, before I’ve lost my own way, and start believing this filth. This was a close, happy family! Why do you want to destroy it?”

“I want the truth,” he said tiredly.