By nine o’clock, I was at Anstey’s offices in Trinity Street, explaining to a bemused secretary that I was a friend of the Paxton family, trying to contact Sarah on a matter of extreme urgency. The news that Sarah wasn’t at home clearly embarrassed the poor woman, who until now had been happy to believe her absence was due to flu. “She phoned in sick on Monday morning. As far as I know, we haven’t heard from her since.” She wanted me to wait for the senior partner, who usually arrived by nine thirty, but her confirmation that Sarah had lied to me about the course in Guildford made such a delay unthinkable. Did she know where I could find Sarah’s boyfriend? Yes, she did. “You mean Rodney Gardner. He’s a solicitor too. But not with this firm. Haynes, Palfreyman and Fyfe. In Corn Street.”

I’d met Rodney just once, at The Hurdles a year before. He remembered me as well as I remembered him: not very. Which turned his natural caution into acute wariness when he received me in his office at ten o’clock that morning.

“Why exactly are you looking for Sarah?”

“A family matter.”

“But you’re not family, are you?”

“Does that make a difference?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, I may as well tell you. Her father’s died.”

“Good Lord. How?”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Well, not really, no.”

“She’s not been at work since Monday. She told them she had flu. But she’s not at home either. So, where could she be?”

“I’ve no idea.” He fiddled with the ribbon marker of his desk diary for a moment, then said: “To be honest, I’m the last person you should be asking. Sarah and I had a… disagreement… about a month ago. We haven’t spoken since.”

“What did you disagree about?”

“It was a stupid business really. But… baffling. I’d been getting a bit resentful of the number of times she couldn’t see me. She always seemed to be working. Even at the weekends. Well, the parents-in-law of one of the partners here, Clive Palfreyman, have retired to the Isle of Wight. Clive and his wife went to see them one weekend and met Sarah on the car ferry back. When they asked what had taken her to the Island, she said she’d been visiting a client in Parkhurst Prison. Clive mentioned it to me and asked if the client was some local villain we might have heard of. Sarah had been pretty tight-lipped, apparently. Well, she’d said nothing to me about it. Not a thing. And when I raised it with her, she was too quick to plead confidentiality for my liking. I had a quiet word with one of her colleagues later. We play a weekly game of squash. He was more or less adamant that Anstey’s had no client banged up in Parkhurst. She had to be lying. But why? When I confronted her, she flew completely off the handle. Accused me of spying on her and God knows what. Said if that was how I was going to behave, it’d be best if we stopped seeing each other. And that’s what we did.”

“You haven’t seen her since?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I was going to try and patch things up this week. I’d bought her some rather expensive earrings for Christmas. But then I heard about Shaun Naylor’s appeal. And something clicked. I remembered which prison they’d said he was in. Albany. On the Isle of Wight. Just down the road from Parkhurst. And I wondered if…”

“That’s who she’d been to see.”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I wondered. Which would be weird, wouldn’t it? I mean… why should she?”

If Sarah had helped Paul concoct his confession, as I was beginning to think she must have done, maybe she was hiding-though what from I couldn’t imagine-at his house on Bathurst Wharf. I walked from Corn Street back through the unrelenting rain to Queen Square, where I’d parked the car, then on to the quay where I’d seen Rowena for the last time six months before and across the swing-bridge to her former home.

By the time I reached the door I was sure something must be wrong. It stood open to the wind and wet and a grey-haired woman in housecoat and wellingtons was peering in over the threshold. As I approached, a man appeared beyond her in the hallway: Inspector Joyce.

“Mr. Timariot,” he said, spotting me immediately over the woman’s shoulder. “What brings you here?”

“Well, I…”

“Looking for Mr. Bryant?”

“Er… yes. Obviously.”

“You’re out of luck.” He stepped onto the pavement and erected an umbrella. “My sergeant will lock up, luv,” he said to the woman. “He’ll drop the key back to you. Thanks for your cooperation.” Then he moved past her and walked slowly towards me, frowning suspiciously. Until the brim of his brolly snagged on mine and he pulled up abruptly. “That’s the next-door neighbour,” he said. “Bryant leaves a key with her. When we couldn’t raise him, we thought we’d better take a peek inside.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing. He’s not there. But it doesn’t look as if he’s gone for long. Anxious to contact him, are you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Heard about his father-in-law?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I have. That’s why I’m in Bristol. To offer Sarah my condolences.”

“You mean she’s still here? I should have thought she’d be in Portugal by now, trying to find out what happened. I wouldn’t mind knowing myself.”

“An accident, I believe.” Grateful for the excuse he’d unwittingly supplied me with, I added: “But you’re probably right. Sarah must already be on her way to Portugal. Stupid of me to expect to find her at home, really. I only came on here in case-”

“She was with Bryant? Not very likely, is it?”

“Probably not.” Irritated by his habit of interrupting me, I made an attempt to put him on the defensive. “And why are you looking for Paul, Inspector?”

“Because Naylor’s release on bail seems to have coincided with a crop of fatal accidents. And coincidences make me twitchy. I just wanted to make sure Bryant hadn’t met with one.”

“I don’t follow. Sir Keith’s death hardly constitutes a crop.”

“No. But there’s been another since then.” He paused, relishing, it seemed, the chance to study my expression while I waited for him to continue. “Vincent Cassidy’s surfaced. Literally. In the Thames, night before last. Dead as most of the fish.”

I could have told him all I knew then. And perhaps I should have done. But I was determined to find Sarah and demand an explanation from her before I carried tales about her to the police. “An accident, you say?”

“It’s what the coroner will probably say. No fixed abode. Plenty of drink and drugs in the bloodstream. Sounds a simple case of drowning, doesn’t it? He could have got the head wound hitting a bridge pier on the way in. Naylor was still in custody at the time, so we can’t go accusing him of anything. I expect we’ll have to settle for accidental death. Same as Sir Keith.”

“And this happened on Tuesday?”

“Monday, more likely. The pathologist reckons he’d been in the water about twenty-four hours.” Monday was the day Cassidy had phoned me. He’d sounded desperate. And now it seemed he’d had good reason to be. Smith and Brown were covering their tracks-with merciless efficiency. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh… no reason.”

“I generally find there’s a reason for everything.”

“Do you? Tell me, Inspector, you are absolutely certain Paul Bryant murdered Oscar Bantock and Louise Paxton, aren’t you?”

“We’d hardly have let Naylor go if we weren’t, would we, sir?” He looked at me scornfully. “And you wouldn’t have changed your statement if you had any doubts.”

“But what convinced you?”

“The accumulation of detailed knowledge. As you once pointed out, we always keep a few things back. And Bryant knew what a lot of them were.”

“Such as?”

“I can’t go into that.”

“Just give me one example. I know about the diary. There must have been more.”

“Of course there was, sir.”