“Quite a while.”

“Maybe it’s time to try something different, then.”

“Like what?”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Yes.” Hayley looked solemnly at him. “But I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to be responsible for anything… extreme.”

“You wouldn’t be responsible.”

“Let me talk to him. Ask him to see reason. Return your phone. Leave me alone. Call a halt to this before it gets out of hand.”

“Seems to me it already is.”

“Let me try.”

Harding sighed. “All right. But if it doesn’t work…”

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Then I’ll tell you where he lives. Meanwhile…” Her smile strengthened. “I have a question for you that may take your mind off Darren. Did you speak to anyone while you were at the Turk’s Head-such as Ray Trathen?”

It was Clive Isbister who had alerted Hayley to Harding’s interest in Ray Trathen. She had spoken to him at the end of viewing and he had mentioned Harding’s enquiries about where Trathen could be found. There seemed no point in denying it, nor in holding back anything Trathen had told him. Hayley had probably heard it all before anyway. She certainly did not react as if any of it was a revelation. She did warn him not to trust Trathen, however, a point she returned to later in the afternoon.

They had visited the Turner exhibition at the Tate by then and retreated to the gallery café for tea. Harding had found it impossible to focus his mind on art and was surprised to discover Hayley had been similarly distracted.

“I didn’t take much of that in,” she freely admitted.

He grinned ruefully. “Neither did I, to be honest.”

“I’m not sure Ray Trathen isn’t a bigger pain than Darren.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Conspiracy theories are self-replicating, you know. They’re like a virus. That diving accident’s become Ray’s private little Paris underpass, with Kerry Foxton standing in for Princess Di.”

“Maybe so. But I can’t pretend I wouldn’t like to take a look at Metherell’s video.”

“Ray’s got you hooked. First the video. Then some other titbit. You’d do better to trust your instincts. For example, is Barney Tozer capable of murder?”

“I imagine we all are. In the right circumstances.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes. I think I do.”

She nodded solemnly. “You’d better ask Metherell to show you the video, then. And see what you make of it.”

The afternoon was turning towards evening by the time they left St. Ives. They had seen no more of Spargo. Hayley’s conclusion was that he had been frightened off by being spotted spying on them. Harding was far from convinced, though he did not say so. It seemed to him that the young man posed more of a threat than Hayley thought. He did not share her confidence that she could, as she put it, “handle Darren.” But he could hardly reveal why he was so doubtful. The theft of Harding’s phone gave Spargo the means to meddle painfully in his life. Whether he would was another question.

Harding sensed Hayley was similarly holding back her reservations about his declared intention of probing the circumstances of Kerry Foxton’s diving accident. She thought he should leave well enough alone. That was clear. But she never actually said so. It was his decision. And she was happy to let him take it.

It was a more complicated decision than she could know, of course. There was more to whet Harding’s curiosity than Barney and Carol’s conspicuous failure ever to have mentioned the incident. There was the need Harding was beginning to sense to arm himself against the unexpected-to learn as much as he could about two people he evidently did not know as well as they had let him suppose. Leaving well enough alone was not an option.

He and Hayley parted outside Penzance railway station. During the train ride back from St. Ives, he had decided to ask her to dine with him at the Mount Prospect the following evening. He was surprised how disappointed he felt when she turned him down. But his disappointment did not last long.

“I can’t tomorrow. But how about Tuesday? You’re not leaving until Wednesday are you?”

“Tuesday’s fine.”

“The auction will have come and gone by then. It’ll all be over.”

“I suppose it will.” Somehow, though, Harding doubted it.

“Until then, you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“You think I need to be?”

“We all need to be.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thanks for today, Tim. I enjoyed it-despite Darren.”

“So did I.”

She smiled and nodded faintly. “Good.”

There was only one Metherell in the directory with an Isles of Scilly address. Harding sat on his bed at the Mount Prospect, concocting a cover story even as he punched the numbers into the bedside phone.

A woman answered. “Mercer House.”

“Could I speak to John Metherell, please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“My name’s Hardy But he… doesn’t know me.”

“Hold on.”

Harding heard her call “John” and waited through a brief, muffled conversation before a gruff male voice came on the line.

“John Metherell speaking. What can I do for you, Mr. Hardy?”

“It’s a… delicate matter. I was wondering if I could come and talk to you about… Kerry Foxton.”

There was a pause, during which Harding thought he heard Metherell sigh. “Oh yes?”

“I gather you have a video… shot on the day of the accident.”

Now there definitely was a sigh. “What’s your interest in this, Mr. Hardy?”

“Kerry was a friend of mine. We lost touch. I only heard recently of her death. I’ve been… trying to understand what happened.”

“What happened was a tragic accident. I don’t know that there’s anything more to be said. Especially not after all these years.”

“It would really help me if you could… at least let me see the video.”

“It won’t tell you anything.”

“Maybe not. But-”

“Where are you phoning from?”

“Penzance. I’ve come a long way, Mr. Metherell. If you could just see your way clear to-”

“All right.” A note of brisk compliance entered the man’s voice. “I don’t object to discussing it. Or showing you the video, come to that. If you’re willing to go to the trouble of flying over here.”

“I am.”

“Very well, then. When were you thinking of?”

“Tomorrow?”

Metherell clicked his tongue thoughtfully, then said, “Tomorrow it is.”

The Isles of Scilly were a subtropical archipelago set in an aquamarine ocean beneath a cloudlessly blue sky. That, at any rate, is how they appeared in the posters adorning Penzance Heliport. As Harding viewed them during the helicopter’s descent to St. Mary’s on a grey chill, wintry Monday morning, they were wind-lashed out-crops of rock in an angry, spume-flecked sea. His summertime visit to Tresco with Polly felt half a world and rather more than seven years away.

There was another and more substantial reason for his glum mood. Earlier, just before leaving the Mount Prospect, he had taken a phone call in his room. The caller had told the receptionist his name was Tozer and Harding had expected to hear Barney’s voice when he was put through. But instead…

“That you, Harding? This is your new buddy, Darren.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to lay off my girl. Hayley”

“She’s not your girl.”

“Isn’t Carol Tozer enough for you?”

“Now, listen. I-”

“No, you listen. Lay off Hayley, or Barney gets to hear the message his missus left on your phone. I don’t think he’ll like it, do you? What d’you think he’ll do about it? He’s not someone you want to cross, man, that’s for sure. Carol could end up like that friend of hers, Kerry Foxton. So could you. It could get seriously nasty. Know what I mean? But it doesn’t have to. It’s up to you. Stay away from Hayley”