Dalgliesh was interested that Alice Mair apparently knew so much about local affairs. He had thought of her as essentially a private woman who would be very little concerned with her neighbours or their problems. And what about himself? In his deliberations whether to sell or keep on the mill as a holiday home he had seen it as a refuge from London, eccentric and remote, providing a temporary escape from the demands of his job and the pressures of success. But how far, even as an occasional visitor, could he isolate himself from the community, from their private tragedies no less than their dinner parties? It would be simple enough to avoid their hospitality given sufficient ruthlessness and he had never lacked that when it came to safeguarding his privacy. But the less tangible demands of neighbourliness might be less easily shrugged away. It was in London that you could live anonymously, could create your own ambience, could deliberately fabricate the persona which you chose to present to the world. In the country you lived as a social being and at the valuation of others. So he had lived in childhood and adolescence in the same country rectory, taking part each Sunday in a familiar liturgy which reflected, interpreted, and sanctified the changing seasons of the farming year. It was a world he had relinquished with small regret and he had not expected to find it again on Larksoken headland. But some of its obligations were here, deep-rooted even in this arid and unfertile earth. His aunt had lived as privately as any woman he knew, but even she had visited and tried to help the Blaneys. He thought of the man, bereft and incarcerated in that cluttered cottage behind the great dyke of shingle, listening night after night to the never-ceasing moaning of the tide, and brooding on the wrongs, real or imaginary, which could inspire that hate-filled portrait. It could hardly be healthy for him or for his children. Come to that, he thought grimly, it could hardly be healthy for Hilary Robarts. He asked: 'Does he get much official help with the children? It can't be easy.'

'As much as he's prepared to tolerate. The local authority has arranged for the twins to attend some kind of daycare centre. They get collected most days. And Theresa, of course, is at school. She catches the bus at the end of the lane. She and Ryan between them cope with the baby. Meg Dennison – she housekeeps for the Reverend and Mrs Copley at the Old Rectory – thinks we ought to do more for them but it's difficult to see precisely what. As an ex-schoolmistress I should have thought she'd had her fill of children and I make no pretence at understanding them.' Dalgliesh remembered her whispered confidence to Theresa in the car, the child's intent face and brief transforming smile, and thought that she understood one child at least far better than she would probably claim.

But his thoughts returned to the portrait. He said: 'It must be uncomfortable, particularly in a small community, to be the object of so much malevolence.'

She understood at once what he meant. 'Hatred rather than malevolence, wouldn't you say? Uncomfortable and rather frightening. Not that Hilary Robarts is easily frightened. But she's becoming something of an obsession with Ryan, particularly since his wife's death. He chooses to believe that Hilary practically badgered her into her grave. It's understandable, I suppose. Human beings need to find someone to blame both for their misery and for their guilt. Hilary Robarts makes a convenient scapegoat.'

It was a disagreeable story and coming as it did after the impact of the portrait it provoked in Dalgliesh a mixture of depression and foreboding which he tried to shake off as irrational. He was glad to let the subject drop and they drove in silence until he left her at the gate of Martyr's Cottage. To his surprise she held out her hand

and gave him, once again, that extraordinary, attractive smile.

'I'm glad you stopped for the children. I'll see you, then, on Thursday night. You will be able to make your own assessment of Hilary Robarts and compare the portrait with the woman.'

As the Jaguar crested the headland Neil Pascoe was dumping rubbish into one of the two dustbins outside the caravan, two plastic bags of empty tins of soup and baby food, soiled disposable napkins, vegetable peelings and squashed cartons, already malodorous despite his careful sealing of the bags. Firmly replacing the lid he marvelled, as he always did, at the difference one girl and an eighteen-month-old baby could make to the volume of household waste. Climbing back into the caravan, he said: 'A Jag has just passed. It looks as if Miss Dalgliesh's nephew is back.'

Amy, fitting a recalcitrant new ribbon to the ancient typewriter, didn't bother to look up.

'The detective. Perhaps he's come to help catch the Whistler.'

'That isn't his job. The Whistler is nothing to do with the Met Police. It's probably just a holiday. Or perhaps he's here to decide what to do with the mill. He can hardly live here and work in London.'

'So why don't you ask him if we can have it? Rent-free, of course. We could caretake, see that no one squats. You're always saying it's antisocial for people to have second homes or leave property empty. Go on, have a word with him. I dare you. Or I will if you're too scared.'

It was, he knew, less a suggestion than a half-serious threat. But for a moment, gladdened by her easy assumption that they were a couple, that she wasn't thinking of leaving him, he actually entertained the idea as a feasible solution to all their problems. Well, almost all. But a glance round the caravan restored him to reality. It was becoming difficult to remember how it had looked fifteen months ago, before Amy and Timmy had entered his life; the home-made shelves of orange boxes ranged against the wall which had held his books, the two mugs, two plates and one soup bowl, which had been adequate for his needs, neatly stacked in the cupboard, the excessive cleanliness of the small kitchen and lavatory, his bed smooth under the coverlet of knitted woollen squares, the single hanging cupboard which had been sufficient for his meagre wardrobe, his other possessions boxed and tidily stowed in the chest under the seat. It wasn't that Amy was dirty; she was continually washing herself, her hair, her few clothes. He spent hours carrying water from the tap outside Cliff Cottage to which they had access. He was continually having to fetch new Calor-gas cylinders from the general store in Lydsett village and steam from the almost constantly boiling kettle made the caravan a damp mist. But she was chronically untidy; her clothes lying where she had dropped them, shoes kicked under the table, knickers and bras stuffed beneath cushions and Timmy's toys littering the floor and table top. The make-up, which seemed to be her sole extravagance, cluttered the single shelf in the cramped shower and he would find half-empty, opened jars and bottles in the food cupboard. He smiled as he pictured Commander Adam Dalgliesh, that no doubt fastidious widower, making his way through the accumulated mess to discuss their suitability as caretakers at Larksoken Mill.

And then there were the animals. She was incurably sentimental about wildlife and they were seldom without some maimed, deserted or starving creatures. Seagulls, their wings covered with oil, were cleansed, caged and then let free. There had been a stray mongrel whom they had named Herbert, with a large uncoordinated body and look of lugubrious disapproval who had attached himself to them for a few weeks and whose voracious appetite for dog-meat and biscuits had had a ruinous effect on the housekeeping. Happily Herbert had eventually trotted off and to Amy's distress had been seen no more, although his lead still hung on the caravan door, a limp reminder of her bereavement. And now there were the two black and white kittens found abandoned on the grass verge of the coast road as they came back in the van from Ipswich. Amy had screamed for him to stop and, scooping up the kittens, had thrown back her head and howled obscenities at the cruelty of human beings. They slept on Amy's bed, drank indiscriminately from any saucer of milk or tea put down for them, were remarkably docile under Timmy's boisterous caresses and, happily, seemed content with the cheapest kind of tinned cat food. But he was glad to have them because they too seemed to offer some assurance that Amy would stay.