A very little while.

After the first time, Sam said, “You’ve not done a lot of this, have you? Here’s a tip. A gent usually tries to count up to at least twenty before he gives his all. You can count up to twenty, can’t you? Fifteen would do at a pinch.”

After the second time, she said, “You’re a fast learner. With the right training you could be a contender.”

And after the third time, she said, “That was great. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to try a bit of sleep.”

For his part, he thought he would never sleep again but just lie there savoring the endless joy of her presence alongside him. But sleep came all the same, and when it came it was full of sweet dreams and peace and quiet breathing.

Miguel Madero awoke.

He was alone.

His first thought was: It’s all been a dream.

His second: But can a dream leave the sweet odor of her in my nostrils?

Agitated, he jumped out of bed, forgot to duck to avoid the low crossbeam, and cracked his brow so hard that tears came to his eyes.

When they cleared, Sam was standing in the doorway, fully dressed, with a broad-brimmed floppy white sun hat pulled over her ravaged skull.

“Hi,” she said. “Bathroom’s all yours. Shall I tell Mrs. A. you’d like a cooked breakfast? Or have you had enough of the big sausage for now?”

Her gaze slid slowly down his body. His hands came round to cover himself and she turned away and ran down the stairs, laughing. It was the loveliest sound he could recall hearing.

I must be careful, he told himself. I am the tyro here. She is the experienced woman. She was lonely, distraught. She took comfort in me as a woman of an earlier age might have taken a sleeping draft. I must not read more into this than an experienced man of my age would read.

But nothing he could tell himself, and nothing he could tell God either as he recited his morning office, did anything to staunch the spring of sheer joy bubbling up inside him, and instead of his usual soft-footed descent of the stairs, he took them at a run, three at a time.

In the kitchen, Edie Appledore heard the noise, wrinkled her brow for a moment, then a slow smile spread across her face as she turned the sausage in the pan.

In the bar Sam was finishing a bowl of cereal. She still had her hat on and when she leaned forward over the bowl, the brim hid her face.

He sat opposite her and said, unthinking, “So what shall we do today?”

She raised her head slowly. There was milk on her lower lip. He wanted to kiss it away, but her expression didn’t invite such familiarity.

She looked at him blankly then said, “You’ve got an appointment at the Hall, haven’t you?”

“So I have. You know, I’d forgotten. But I needn’t get up there for another hour or so.”

She said, “I suppose not,” and the concealing brim came down again as she took another spoonful of cornflakes.

Mrs. Appledore came in with a plate of sausage and mushrooms which she placed before him. She then transferred his breakfast cutlery from the neighboring table without comment and went back to the kitchen.

“You decided I would be hungry?” said Mig.

“I’d have taken bets on it.”

He thought about this, smiled, and began eating.

She poured herself some coffee from the jug and watched him gravely.

He didn’t speak, fearful of not finding the right thing to say.

After a while she said, “I was thinking…”

“What?”

“Your ancestor. Do you think he killed Thomas Gowder?”

“Good Lord. I don’t know. I could hardly blame him if he did. Does it matter?”

“Truth matters,” she said with absolute certainty. “In your translation Miguel says, He came after me. As I pushed myself upright, my right hand rested on a heavy fuel log. He drove the knife at my throat. I ducked aside. And I swung the log at his temple. He fell like a tree. But the account in Swinebank’s Guide says: After some months of living at Foulgate and being nursed back to health, the youth repaid their kindness one night by assaulting Jenny. On being interrupted by her husband, he wrestled the man to the ground and slit his throat from ear to ear, almost severing the head from the neck.”

The way she spoke the words convinced him this was verbatim not a paraphrase.

“I’m impressed,” he said.

“Why?” she said. “It’s a quirk, not a talent. Like a digital camera, only the images are harder to delete.”

“A useful quirk,” he said.

“Not always. I mean, what earthly use is it for me to know that you have a small hairy mole, ovoid in shape, approximately one square centimeter in area, situated seven centimeters on a fifteen-degree diagonal to the left of your belly button?”

He took a larger bite of his sausage than he’d intended and, after a lot of chewing, managed to say, “It might come in handy if you had to identify my body.”

“No,” she said. “There are other things I’d look for. You haven’t answered my question.”

“Are you worried because it could turn out you’re related to the Gowders?” he asked, laughing.

She didn’t laugh back.

“Only if it turns out the connection’s any closer than a couple of centuries,” she said flatly.

He took her meaning and said, “But the twins would only have been young boys themselves then…”

“There was their father. He sounds to have been a piece of work. Look, Mig, someone got Pam pregnant and it certainly wasn’t the Angel of the Lord.”

Before he could reply, Edie Appledore’s voice floated through the doorway.

“Sam, telephone!”

“Excuse me,” said Sam.

In the kitchen Mrs. Appledore said rather disapprovingly, “It’s Noddy Melton.”

Sam picked up the phone. Behind her she could hear the landlady working at the sink. Fair enough, it was her kitchen, but if this got private, Sam would have no compunction in asking her to leave.

She said, “Hi, Mr. Melton. Sam Flood here.”

“Good morning, Miss Flood,” said the little man’s precise voice. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine. How about you?”

“I’m well. It occurred to me after listening to you last evening that in some important respects the case has altered, as they say.”

“Which case would that be, Mr. Melton?”

“Which indeed? You ask such good questions, Miss Flood. If you have a moment this morning, perhaps I can help you find answers to match. Any time. Good day.”

Sam replaced the receiver.

“Thanks, Edie,” she said.

“My pleasure. Listen, I know you’re desperate for answers, but be careful when you’re dealing with Noddy.”

“That’s more or less what you said to me that first day in the bar,” said Sam.

“The difference is you’ve spoken with him since then, so now you’ll know what I’m talking about,” said Mrs. Appledore. “I daresay he’s been filling you in on his own personal history of Illthwaite. Vigilante village, that’s how he sees us, right? The place where they killed Billy Knipp ’cos everyone knew he was a nasty little tearaway; and got rid of my man, Artie, ’cos he wanted to sell up here and take me back to Oldham. Above all, of course, he probably hinted that they took young Mary Croft and dropped her into Mecklin Moss rather than risk her marrying the local bobby.”

“He might have said something,” said Sam. “If he did, what’s the party line?”

“Billy Knipp came off his bike swerving to avoid a troop of boy scouts trekking along a lane he was driving down too fast. Only decent thing the lad ever did. Seventeen witnesses. As for my Artie, it was his second coronary that killed him. After the first he was told to lose weight and give up the fags. He did neither. One witness. Me.”

“And Mary Croft?”

“She was another wild one. Only took up with young Noddy to disoblige her dad, who she hated. Got on well with her stepmother, though. That’s why it was her she rang to say she was OK after she took off to London. God knows what she got up to down there, but a few years later, when the old man died, her stepmum sold up and went off to join her and split the inheritance. There was only about eight years between them and they settled down to run a taberna on the Costa Brava. Still do, from what I hear.”