Harry and Naomi cooked while Alec and Patrick sorted through what they had recovered.

‘Diaries,’ Patrick said. ‘Going back to 1983. I don’t think he threw anything away. A couple of old address books from the study and the one from by the telephone in the hall.’

‘More notes for his book,’ Alec went on. ‘More names to add to the list of interviewees. Plans for volume two of his Fen Tigers thing. Bank statements, credit card statements, usual stuff. It’s going to take weeks to check up on all this.’

‘Then we prioritize,’ Naomi said. ‘Look for unusual transactions on the statements or anything regular that isn’t a utility or named. Cash withdrawals, that sort of thing.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Patrick volunteered.

‘Feel free,’ Alec told him. ‘I’ll go through the phone bills and cross-reference with the address books. Harry, could you give Patrick a hand after dinner? There’s miles of the financial stuff and an accountant’s eye …’

‘Be glad to. You didn’t say, was there anything of interest on the computer disks?’

‘Of interest, yes. Relevance, not that I could see. The stick drive had a back-up of his book. It looked to be about ninety percent complete.’

‘How can you tell?’ Naomi wondered. ‘Harry, how do you want your steak?’ She prodded it with a finger. ‘It feels medium rare.’

‘How do you work that out without seeing it?’ Harry wanted to know.

‘Oh, there was this chef on television. He said if you pressed the base of your thumb then what that felt like, when you prodded steak, was medium. The ball of your thumb felt like well done.’

‘Presumably if it felt like the knuckle it meant you’d burned it,’ Alec mocked. ‘You must have asbestos fingers. I’d like to find that laptop. And, as to how I know the book was ninety percent done, he’s already got a table of contents. Twenty-five chapters and most already written.’

‘Um. Right. There might not be anything more on the laptop, you know,’ Naomi pointed out. ‘He might just have used it for his writing.’

‘Perhaps so, but it would be nice to be certain. So far there’s nothing that remotely links Uncle Rupert to Samuel Kinnear, or anyone else of his ilk.’

He paused. ‘I have a very vague memory that Rupe lived in London for a short time but …’

‘Your dad would remember?’

‘Probably. Naomi, I’m going to have to leave for a couple of days. Will you be all right?’

‘Leave? For where?’

‘London. Follow up on some of the information Fine gave me.’

‘You’re not fit enough for that. Can’t you call?’

‘No, I can’t do this over the phone. I’ll be OK. Harry and Patrick are here or I’d insist you went home.’

‘Like to see you try.’

‘Who are you looking for?’ Patrick wanted to know.

‘I have a few contacts there but I also want to go to Colindale.’

‘Colindale?’

‘Newspaper archive. Sometimes it helps to look beyond the official records. Fine’s given me some directions to look and a couple of names.’

‘It all sounds a bit vague,’ Naomi objected, not happy about Alec going anywhere, especially while he was still so obviously in pain. She couldn’t see him wince when he stretched or pulled the damaged ribs, but she had slept in the same bed last night. Or rather, lain awake while he tried to find a position in which he could comfortably sleep.

‘It’s all vague,’ Alec confirmed irritably, but nothing they could say could dissuade him from leaving the next morning.

Later, Patrick and Naomi wandered into the garden and through the gate in the back wall that led to what Alec had called the meadow.

‘What’s it like?’ she asked.

‘Um, I don’t know. Rough grass, little trees and a hedge with bigger trees growing in it.’ He turned, scanning the boundary. ‘It’s big,’ he said. ‘Big for a garden, looks more like a field.’

‘Any way anyone could get through the hedge?’

He left her side, Napoleon bounding after him. Naomi stood, listening to his commentary. Patrick was very good at remembering to tell her what was going on.

‘The hedge is taller than me,’ he said. ‘It’s mixed, which means it’s old. There’s thorn and elderberry and what I think might be wild roses. There’s rose hips. Nettles like you wouldn’t believe and a couple of ash trees.’

‘So, quite a barrier.’

‘Yes, that is. Ah, maybe not.’

‘Oh, what do you see?’

‘Hang on a minute, I’m trying to find a way past the blasted nettles.’

‘Be careful.’

‘OK. There’s … well, it’s not exactly a gap. There’s a fence just here. A bit rotten looking but low and climbable.’

‘Look as if anyone’s climbed it lately?’

‘Hard to say. No obvious scuff marks or mud on the rails, but, Naomi, it’s pretty low. Easy.’

‘What can you see over the fence?’

‘I’m getting to that. It’s a field with cows. No, bullocks, not cows. After that there’s a farm. House, barn, couple of other buildings. Hedge all round the field, but I can see a gate across the other side and a car’s just gone by so that must be the road. It sort of loops round. But if someone did come across here they’d have to come all the way across the field and then over the wall.’

‘No, the gate wasn’t locked, remember. Just latched. I’ll get Harry to put a bolt on it, I think.’

She sighed, glad she’d not known before about the unlocked gate. Relieved in the same breath that the men who’d come to the house probably didn’t know about it either or they’d probably have come through that way. Patrick had been certain that there was no sign of anyone entering the garden that way, he’d had to clear long grass from the foot of the gate before they had been able to pass through.

Patrick was back with her now. ‘It’s getting dark, isn’t it?’ Naomi asked.

‘You can tell that?’

‘Not exactly. I’ve just noticed that the air round here feels damp in the early evening once it starts to get dark. I remember it used to get that way when I stayed on the coast. Where’s Napoleon?’

Patrick called to him. ‘He’s over there. Your left. He seems to be rolling in something.’

‘Oh great. That’ll mean a bath.’

They wandered over to where the black dog wriggled happily. The damp grass released the heat of the day, fragrant beneath their feet and Naomi caught the warm scent of wild thyme and chamomile beneath her feet. It reminded her of the day they had gone to the Peatlands.

‘Looks like he’s been digging,’ Patrick commented.

‘Digging? Sure it’s not moles?’ Napoleon, in her experience, was not a digger. He caught frisbees and rolled in unspeakable things and occasionally poked his nose into something that made him sneeze, but he didn’t normally dig.

‘Not moles,’ Patrick said. ‘There are molehills, but not just here and they don’t look like this. No, someone’s been digging. With a spade, that kind of digging. Shift over, Dog.’ Unceremoniously, he moved Napoleon out of the way. ‘The earth’s soft and still loose, so not long ago, I’d say. I can get my fingers right down. Call Napoleon will you, Naomi, he’s trying to help.’

She called the now disappointed black dog back to her side. ‘Any idea how deep it might be?’

‘Hard to say. Deeper than I can easily scoop out anyway. We should get some lights out here and a spade. You OK here for a minute while I run back to the house?’

Naomi thought about it. Was she fine about that? ‘Sure,’ she told him, still not totally convinced. She heard his feet on grass then on brick as he went back through the gate and on to the garden path. Then she listened to the silence. There was a soft wind breathing through the trees but little in the way of birdsong, only a lone blackbird defining his territory before he retired for the night, and then the faint lowing of cows in the neighbouring field. Funny, she’d only ever thought of cows mooing, not the male animal. Cars. Two or three of them passing on the narrow road. Two or three together almost amounted to gridlock round here, Naomi thought.