The party set off from Hugh Town, St. Mary’s, in ideal weather, on Friday, 6 August. They cruised out to the Western Rocks and stopped at the dive site near the Gilstone. Metherell videoed the preparations, then Tozer and Kerry went down. None of those left on the boat thought there was anything wrong until Tozer surfaced, saying he had become separated from Kerry and was worried she was in difficulties. He went down again, returning about ten minutes later, holding Kerry limp in his arms. They hauled her aboard and found she was not breathing. Tozer could not say how long she had been in that state. He had found her half in and half out of the wreck. Alf Martyn got her breathing again, but she was still unresponsive. There was a lot of panic. Trathen had only a confused recollection of the fast and bumpy ride back to St. Mary’s. Martyn radioed ahead for help. There was an ambulance waiting for them when they reached Hugh Town. They stood on the quay watching it speed off to the island hospital. Kerry was flown to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth later that day. Trathen for one never saw her again.

The police made desultory enquiries, but never seemed to think it was anything other than an accident. Kerry’s air-supply hose had been pierced, presumably by contact with the wreck, draining her oxygen cylinder before she could surface. The equipment belonged to Tozer, who claimed it was in good condition. But then he would, as Ray Trathen saw it. The whole venture was risky, according to local divers, who reckoned twin cylinders with separate hoses a must for wreck penetration. Tozer countered by saying penetration had never been the plan. They were just going to take a look. Kerry must have decided to go in alone, knowing he would try to stop her. Ultimately, that was the coroner’s conclusion. In effect, it was all her own fault.

Trathen never went along with that and, to hear him tell it, his doubts on the issue were why Tozer eventually sacked him. Harding suspected he had voiced those doubts only after being sacked. Tozer wanted out of Cornwall. Trathen was just part of the baggage he discarded in the process.

As to Tozer’s relationship with Carol Janes, there too Trathen was sceptical. He thought it might have begun before the accident. Maybe Carol was an accomplice in sabotaging Kerry’s equipment. The hose could have been tampered with, causing it to blow under pressure. If Carol did aid and abet her friend’s murder, her reward was a marriage of convenience and a share in Tozer’s fortune. Trathen had no evidence to back any of this up, of course. It was just the kind of slanderous nonsense an aggrieved former employee-and alcoholic to boot-would come up with. He claimed EU auditors had started asking awkward questions in the months before the accident about the use Starburst had made of lucrative development grants. But he could not prove Kerry Foxton was on the trail of the scandal, if scandal it was. The auditors were still sniffing around when Trathen was sacked. What they subsequently uncovered, if anything, he had no idea.

Trathen admitted the police had studied Metherell’s video without noticing anything suspicious. He did not mention his interest in Gabriel Tozer’s video collection, however. Nor did Harding. Neither was being completely honest with the other.

Carol’s abrupt transition from Kerry Foxton’s friend to Barney Tozer’s wife left a bad taste in Harding’s mouth, though, there was no denying it. She had always said they had met when Barney strolled into her café in Hugh Town one day. That now looked at best a distortion, at worst a lie. They had married in Cannes only a few months later, while Kerry was still lingering on life support in a hospital bed in England. The Foxton family had insisted on keeping her alive long after all hope of recovery had faded. According to Trathen, she had finally died sometime in 2003. The inquest had been held in October of that year.

Harding was already acquainted with the Tozers by then, although his affair with Carol had not yet begun. Barney’s fleeting return to Penzance to give evidence had presumably been camouflaged as yet another business trip. Nothing had been said about its real purpose, least of all to Harding. It was as if it had never happened.

Talking to Carol again after suddenly learning so much about her that he had never known before was a daunting prospect. Harding had turned off his phone before entering the Turk’s Head and found himself hoping there would not be another message from her when he turned it back on.

There was not. For a simple reason, as he discovered halfway back to the Mount Prospect: his phone was no longer in his pocket.

It was not being kept for him behind the bar at the Turk’s Head. No one had handed it in. Recalling his encounter with the supposedly drunken Darren, Harding started to feel queasily certain that it had been stolen from him. Darren was long gone, of course. His surname was Spargo, according to the barmaid. He stacked shelves in one of the supermarkets on the edge of town. Tesco or Morrison’s. She could not remember which. Neither could any of the locals. Trathen had moved on too, perhaps, it was thought, down the road to the Admiral Benbow.

But Trathen was not in the Admiral Benbow. And Harding doubted it would have helped a lot if he had been. The dismal truth was that tracking down Darren Spargo was unlikely to achieve anything. Harding could not prove he had stolen his phone. Maybe young Darren was in the habit of topping up his weekend drinking and clubbing fund with the odd opportunistic phone theft.

Or maybe, which was a far more disturbing thought, it had not been opportunistic at all.

Harding was woken by the bedside telephone early the following morning.

“Call for you from a Mrs. Tozer, sir,” the receptionist announced. “Will you take it?”

“Sure. Put her through.”

“Tim?”

“Carol. Hi.”

“What the hell’s going on? Your mobile seems to be permanently switched off.”

“Ah. Does it?”

“Well?”

“I’m afraid it was stolen last night. Some pick-pocket helped himself to it in a pub.”

“What?”

“Simple as that. I’m sorry to say.”

“But I left-” Harding heard her sigh. “Couldn’t you have been more careful?”

“I wish I had been.”

“How am I going to keep in touch with you now?”

“Call me here. You’d better tell Barney that as well. Say I phoned you.”

“When were you going to, exactly?”

“Soon, of course. I suppose I was hoping…” He rubbed his eyes, which were still not focusing properly. “Never mind.”

“Has anything else gone wrong?”

“No. I’ve seen the ring. Nice-looking piece. There’ll be no problem. I’ll fly home on Wednesday, as planned. I got your message about Thursday.”

“And?”

“I’ll be all yours.”

Harding had surprised himself by the extent to which he was prepared to mislead Carol. Staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he shaved, he acknowledged the deceit inherent in just one of the phrases he had uttered. “There’ll be no problem.” In truth there already was a problem. Indeed, there were several. And they seemed to be multiplying.

He was paged during breakfast. Mr. Tozer was on the telephone now. He took the call in reception.

“You want to watch those Cornish,” chortled Barney. “They’ve had to diversify since wrecking went out of fashion.”

“I’m glad you’re amused.”

“Other people’s misfortunes are always a hoot. Lose your wallet as well, did you? What about your passport?”

“It was just the phone.”

“Oh, well, not so bad, then. How’s it going at Heartsease?”

“Fine. Your friend Isbister doesn’t seem to think there’ll be much competition for the ring. It should be a doddle.”