“I hoped Jack Shepherd-Kerry’s old editor-would know what she’d hidden under the floorboards. But he couldn’t help me. So, I decided to try Nathan instead.”

“You seriously expected him to know-or to tell you if he did?”

“I was running out of options.”

“Well, you’ve one fewer left now.”

“Do the police believe it was suicide?”

“They seem inclined to. An accident’s out of the question. And murder? There was no sign of a struggle, apparently. Naturally, they wanted to know how he’d been when we last met. Was he distraught at being implicated, albeit unwittingly, in Barney Tozer’s murder? Was there any suggestion he was keeping back vital evidence? Was he perhaps not so unwitting after all and prey to remorse? I’m sure you can imagine the direction their questions took.”

“How did you answer them?”

“As frankly as I felt I could. A degree of reticence was essential, for my sake as well as yours. I certainly made it clear I regarded the idea that Nathan had committed suicide as absurd. I gather his girlfriend said much the same. He was planning to go to work today as far as she knew. He wasn’t ill. And according to her he wasn’t depressed, just angry at Hayley for using him to lure Barney Tozer to his death. None of which I suspect is likely to deflect the police from their suicide theory. It fits the facts better than any other from their point of view.”

“If it wasn’t suicide…”

“Hayley’s not physically capable of throwing a grown man from a balcony, Mr. Harding. You know that. It’s as absurd as suggesting he threw himself.”

“But something propelled him.”

“Yes. Or someone.”

“Someone other than Hayley.”

“Quite so.”

“Which means…”

“Have you seen Sir Clowdisley Shovell’s tomb in Westminster Abbey?”

Harding blinked in surprise. “Sorry?”

“If not, you ought to take a look at it, in view of your involvement in the Association story. A grandiose marble monument carved by Grinling Gibbons. Bizarrely in accordance with the fashion of the day, Sir Clowdisley is depicted, despite his obviously eighteenth-century wig, in a toga and sandals, more like a Roman emperor than an admiral. Most of the thousands of tourists who file past the tomb every year don’t pause to read the inscription, so probably have no idea he was a man of the sea. Costume sends a message. And sometimes that message can be misleading, whether by design or not.”

“What are you getting at, Ann?”

“How sure are you that it was Hayley who shot Barney Tozer?”

Harding could not suppress a rueful smile. It was the question he had been asking himself since learning of Nathan’s apparent suicide. It was the question that begged all others. He had persuaded himself at one point that the young woman he had pursued through rain and lamplight along the streets of Munich might not be Hayley after all. He had only changed his mind at Nymphenburg, in the seconds after Tozer’s death, when he had watched the same young woman run away through the trees, without looking back. She matched Hayley in height and build and hairstyle. And she was dressed for the part, in the same kind of mac Hayley had been wearing the very first time he had seen her, at Heartsease, a few days before the auction. But was it her? Was it her beyond the shadow of a doubt?

“If you’re not sure, Mr. Harding, not absolutely sure, then…”

“We only have Nathan’s word for it she set up the rendezvous in the first place.”

“And if he was lying, for whatever reason…”

“He can’t own up to it now.”

“Death seals everyone’s lips.”

“My God.” Some of the implications of what they were saying flashed through Harding’s mind. “Could this be true?”

“I think it may be.”

“But if it is…”

“Then, what do we do about it?” She gazed at him intently. “What exactly do we do?”

With so much unknown, they had to learn as much as they could as quickly as they could. Ann volunteered to contact Veronica and pump her for information about Nathan’s activities in recent weeks: where he had been, who he had spoken to, what he had said that might seem more significant now than it had at the time. For his part, Harding could see nothing for it but to chase down the last lead left to him: the identity of the Heartsease thief; which might, just might, be the answer to everything.

Since the call from Whybrow, Harding had kept his phone switched off. He checked for messages as he stood stamping his feet to keep warm while waiting for the next train to Victoria on the wind-lashed platform at West Dulwich station. There was one: from Carol. And it was very different in tone from the last message she had left for him.

Why are you in England, Tim? Tony’s told me what you said, but I don’t believe it any more than he does. If you’re still chasing Hayley, you’re as mad as she is. If not, then what the hell are you up to? Explanation please. I think I’m owed one. What are you trying to do?

It was a reasonable question in its way. But it was not one Harding had any intention of answering. He switched the phone off again, shoved it back into his pocket and squinted down the track. Where was the train?

The sleeper pulled out of Paddington on schedule at ten to midnight. Harding had secured a berth at the last minute. After dumping his bag in his cabin, he headed for the buffet, where nightcaps were being served. He suspected he would need several.

There were half a dozen or so customers ahead of him in the queue. He paid them no attention. But one of them paid him a great deal.

“Mr. Harding,” came a familiar voice. “This is a surprise.”

I’ve thought about you a lot these past few days,” said Clive Isbister as they settled with their drinks at an empty table in the buffet car. “I was shocked when I heard Barney had been killed and that Hayley Winter-Foxton, I suppose I should say-was the prime suspect. Then I saw it reported that you were there when it took place. Now… what? You’re going back to Penzance?”

“Carol asked me to pay Humph a visit and tell him exactly how it happened,” Harding replied. It was a passable cover story. “She was too busy sorting everything out to come herself.”

“I can imagine. Well, that’s good of you. But what a coincidence, hey? I’ve been up at an ISVA dinner-Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers.” Isbister’s flushed complexion and general loquaciousness suggested he had not stinted himself. “So, tell me, how did it happen?”

There was clearly no avoiding an explanation, so Harding embarked on one, omitting any mention of his new-found doubts about Hayley’s responsibility for Tozer’s death-and of Nathan Gashry’s supposed suicide. He was in no mood to bare his soul and felt certain there was nothing to be gained by taking Isbister into his confidence.

“Appalling,” said Isbister when he had finished. “Just appalling.” Which was not, Harding reflected, such a bad summary. “And there’s no question it was Hayley?”

“There wasn’t much room for doubt.” Which was not, of course, the same as saying there was no room at all.

“But shooting him like that, in cold blood. I’d never have thought her capable of such a thing.”

“Neither would I.”

“But you saw it with your own eyes, so there it is.” Isbister stared thoughtfully into his plastic beaker of whisky and soda. “It’s strange. Ironic, you could say. There’s a reunion every decade of my year at Humphry Davy Grammar. Our year, I mean. Barney’s, mine, Ray Trathen’s…”

“And John Metherell’s?”

“Yes, of course. John’s too. You know him?”

“We’ve met.”

This minor revelation induced a puzzled pause on Isbister’s part. Then he pressed on. “Well, the last was in… 1998. Function room at the Queen’s Hotel. I remember standing there, chatting with Barney, and… yes, actually, I think it was John Metherell, now you mention him. Anyway, the do was winding down and Barney said jocularly ‘See you in another ten years, then.’ And John said, ‘God willing.’ To which Barney responded, ‘Don’t worry. I’m indestructible.’ And, you know, in a funny sort of way, I believed him. There was something… granite-like… about him. Good at rugby, you know? Loose-head prop. Get tackled by him and you remembered it. My God, you did.” He winced in tribute to a long-ago collision. “Yes. Indestructible. But he wasn’t, of course. And he won’t be sharing a joke with anyone at the 2008 gathering.”