Frank sounded insane, as did the other dog. Rob saw as he burst out of the cottage that for some reason Jossie had stupidly opened the door of the Land Rover and had let Frank jump out and he himself was now bent into the vehicle and searching through it as if he didn’t bloody well already know who owned it.

The Weimaraner was actually howling. It came to Rob that the animal was howling not at the other dog but at Jossie himself. This fueled Rob’s rage because if Frank howled it was because he’d been harmed, and no one was meant to lay a hand on his dog and certainly not Jossie who’d laid hands elsewhere and death was the result.

The retriever was yelping now because Frank was howling. Two dogs from the property across the lane joined in and the resulting cacophony set the ponies in motion inside the paddock. They began to trot back and forth along the line of the fence, tossing their heads, neighing.

“What the hell’re you doing?” Robbie demanded.

Jossie swung round from the Land Rover and asked a variation of the same question and with far more reason, as the door to the cottage stood wide open and it was only too clear what Rob had been up to. Rob shouted at Frank to be quiet, which only set the dog into a complete paroxysm of barking. He ordered the Weimaraner back into the vehicle, but instead Frank approached Jossie as if he intended to go for the thatcher’s throat. Jossie said, “Tess. That’ll do,” and his own animal ceased barking at once, and this made Rob think of power and control and how a need for power and control could be at the heart of what had happened to Jemima and then he thought of the railway tickets, of the hotel receipt, of Jossie’s trip to London, of his lies, and he strode over to the thatcher and heaved him against the side of the Land Rover.

He said through his teeth, “London, you bastard.”

“What the hell…” Gordon Jossie cried.

“She didn’t leave you because she had someone else,” Robbie said. “She wanted to marry you, although God knows why.” He pressed Jossie back, had his arm across the thatcher’s throat before Jossie could defend himself. With his other hand, he knocked the man’s sunglasses to the ground because he damn well intended to see his eyes for once. Jossie’s hat went with them, a baseball cap that left a line across his forehead like the mark put on Cain. “But you didn’t want that, did you?” Rob demanded. “You didn’t want her. First you used her, then you drove her away, and then you went after her.”

Jossie pushed Rob away. He was breathing hard, and he was, Rob found, far stronger than he looked. He said, “What’re you talking about? Used her for what, for the love of God?”

“I can even see how it worked, you bastard.” It seemed so obvious now that Rob wondered he hadn’t seen it before. “You wanted this place-this holding, didn’t you?-and you reckoned I could help you get it, because it’s part of my area, and land with common rights isn’t easy to come by. And I’d want to help because of Jemima, eh? It’s all fitting now.”

“You’re round the bend,” Jossie said. “Get the hell out of here.” Rob didn’t move. Jossie said, “If you don’t get off this property, I’ll-”

“What? Call the cops? I don’t think so. You were in London, Jossie, and they know it now.”

That stopped him cold. He was dead in whatever tracks he thought he was about to make. He said nothing, but Robbie could tell he was thinking like mad.

The upper hand his, Rob decided to play it. “You were in London the very day she was murdered. They’ve got your rail tickets. How d’you like that? They’ve got the receipt from the hotel and I expect your name’s on it large as life, eh? So how long d’you expect it’ll be before they come after you for a little chat? An hour? More? An afternoon? A day?”

If Jossie had been considering lying at this point, his face betrayed him. As did his body, which went limp, all fight gone because he knew he was done for. He bent, picked up his sunglasses, rubbed them against the front of his T-shirt, which was marked by sweat and stained from work. He returned the glasses to his face, seeming to hide his wary eyes, but it didn’t matter now because Rob had seen in them everything he wanted to see.

“Yes,” Robbie said. “Endgame, Gordon. And don’t think you can run because I’ll follow you to hell if I have to and I’ll bring you back.”

Jossie reached for his cap next, and he slapped it against his jeans, although he didn’t put it back on. He’d removed his windcheater and left it in a lump on the Land Rover’s seat. He grabbed it up in the same lump and said, “All right, Rob.” His voice was quiet and Rob saw that his lips had gone the colour of putty. “All right,” he said again.

“Meaning what exactly?”

“You know.”

“You were there.”

“If I was, whatever I say won’t make a difference.”

“You’ve lied about Jemima from the first.”

“I’ve not-”

“She wasn’t running to someone in London. She didn’t leave you for that. She had no one else, in London or anywhere. There was only you, and you were who she wanted. But you didn’t want her: commitment, marriage, whatever. So you drove her away.”

Jossie looked towards the ponies in the paddock. He said, “That’s not how it was.”

“Are you denying you were there, man? Cops check the CCTV films from the railway station-in Sway, in London-and you’ll not be on them the day she died? They take your photo to that hotel and no one’ll remember you were there for a night?”

“I had no reason to kill Jemima.” Gordon licked his lips. He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the lane, as if seeking someone coming to rescue him from this confrontation. “Why the hell would I want her dead?”

“She’d met someone new once she got to London. She told me as much. And then it was dog in the manger for you, wasn’t it. You didn’t want her but, by God, no one else was going to have her.”

“I’d no idea she had anyone else. I still don’t know that. How was I to know?”

“Because you tracked her. You found her, and you talked to her. She would have told you.”

“And if that’s what happened, why would I care? I had someone else as well. I have someone else. I didn’t kill her. I swear to God-”

“You don’t deny being there. There in London.”

“I wanted to talk to her, Rob. I’d been trying to find her for months. Then I got a phone call…Some bloke had seen the cards I’d put up. He left a message saying where Jemima was. Just where she worked, in Covent Garden. I phoned there-a cigar shop-but she wouldn’t talk to me. Then she rang me a few days later and said yes, all right, she was willing to meet me. Not where she worked, she said, but at that place.”

At the cemetery, Rob thought. But what Jossie was saying didn’t make sense. Jemima had someone new. Jossie had someone new. What had they to talk about?

Rob walked to the paddock, where the ponies had gone back to grazing. He stood at the fence and looked at them. They were too sleek, too well fed. Gordon was doing them no service by keeping them here. They were meant to forage all year long; they were part of a herd. Rob opened the gate and went into the paddock.

“What are you doing?” Jossie demanded.

“My job.” Behind him, Rob heard the thatcher follow him into the paddock. “Why’re they here?” he asked him. “They’re meant to be on the forest with the others.”

“They were lame.”

Rob went closer to the ponies. He shushed them gently as, behind him, Jossie closed the paddock gate. It didn’t take any longer than a moment for Rob to see that the ponies were perfectly fine, and he could feel their restless need to be out of there and with the others in the herd.

He said, “They’re not lame now. So why’ve you not-” And then he saw something far more curious than the oddity of healthy ponies locked up in a paddock in July. He saw the way their tails were clipped. Despite the growth of hair since the last autumn drift when the ponies had been marked, the pattern of the clipping on these ponies’ tails was still quite readable and what that pattern said was that neither one of the animals belonged in this particular area of the New Forest at all. Indeed, the ponies were branded as well, and the brand identified them as coming from the north part of the Perambulation, near Minstead, from a holding located next to Boldre Gardens.