Dorcas waited for him to simmer down. “Now you see why I’ve never discussed it with you. Has anyone ever told you what an ugly brute you are when you’re angry?”

“Not many live to mention it.”

“Ah. I’m having a lucky escape.”

“Well, it sounds a revolting procedure to me, Dorcas. Knowing your attitude to animals I’m surprised that you didn’t set the whole monkey tribe free in Regent’s Park and burn the laboratory down.”

“I thought about it. But there was no park on hand. This was going on at the research clinic I told you about. St. Raphael. In the end I walked out in a cowardly way. It’s hard for a lowly student to decide she knows better than a doctor of philosophy talking German in a white lab coat. And they’d have known it was me. I think they may even have guessed who put something sticky in his lab boots.”

“All this nonsense about nature and nurture—I’m not sure it’s a good thing for you to be wrapping yourself up in. The last time we spoke—seven years ago, do you remember?—you said you were going to make a study of it, the better to understand yourself. Has it helped? I thought I heard you giving a smart reply to Langhorne when he was whispering Shakespeare into your left ear over the coffee urn.”

“ ‘A devil, a born devil, on whose nature nurture can never stick.’ It’s from The Tempest, and the devil being insulted is Caliban. Langhorne was just testing me out. And enjoying the jinglejangle of the words. I don’t think he really understood what he was saying. He’s got a mind like a thesaurus. Mention ‘nurture,’ and it falls open at the letter ‘n.’ When I started to talk to him about inheritance and environment and the interdependence of the two influences, with references to genetic input, quantitative and qualitative relevance of seed and soil to final product, his eyes glazed over.

“Yes, like that, Joe. You can unglaze now if you wish. Time, I think, to go and interview the Bellefoy child. The inspector said if we went after eleven, we’d find Betty there too. She gets off early on a Saturday.”

THE CHILD, HARRY, was sitting curled up like a baby on Betty’s knee when they arrived. Far too big for such a perch, he spilled over in an ungainly way. When he saw Joe and Dorcas come in he struggled to get up and flee, but Betty held on to him tightly and whispered in his ear. She put down the alphabet book they’d been studying and said in a country voice that managed to be bright and yet soft at the same time, “Harry’s doing well with his letters, sir, miss. I won’t ask him to show you because he’s too shy, but he’s a dab hand at M for motor car and O for orange. He can even draw them with a pencil.”

“May I see?” Dorcas took the book and opened it. “See there, Harry … that’s D for dog, but it’s also D for Dorcas. That’s my name. Can you find me H for Harry?”

Betty quietly turned the pages, and the child pointed excitedly at H for house and mumbled his name.

“Well done! That’s right! Why don’t you show me your motor cars, Harry? I hear you’ve got a terrific collection. May I have a look?”

“Off you go, Harry,” Betty said. “The inspector told us you might like to see them and talk about them. Harry’s got them all lined up ready in his bedroom if you’d like to go along with him, miss.”

“Where’s your mother this morning, Betty?” Joe asked when they had clumped upstairs.

“It’s a Saturday. When I get back down from the school she always goes off into town and does the shopping. Sometimes she goes to the pictures—there’s usually a matinee on. It’s bad enough working up at that place, sir, but it’s worse being cooped up here with Harry, day in, day out. I try to relieve her when I can. Cup of tea? We’ve got Earl Grey if you can stomach it.”

Betty got up and made her way across the sparsely furnished room towards the small outshot housing the kitchen. Joe watched her. Small, neat-waisted with an abundance of dark, curly hair and a shy under-the-lashes way of looking up at a man. Yet she remained unmarried, and Joe wondered what was wrong with the men of Seaford that they hadn’t snapped up this pearl. Could it be her slight limp? Hardly likely, but Joe could see no other flaw.

“I love Earl Grey,” he called after her. “Let me help you.”

“Gerraway with you! A gentleman in the kitchen! I wouldn’t know where to put myself!”

“I fend for myself in London, Betty. I’m an ace with a teapot. And I won’t get under your feet.”

Five minutes later Joe emerged from the kitchen carrying the tea tray and having inspected the range of kitchen knives to his satisfaction.

They drank their tea, smiling to hear the sounds of toy motor cars revving up and brakes squealing, grunting and laughter from upstairs. Joe plunged into a conversation about the relative merits of James Cagney and Paul Muni. Neither appealed much to Betty, who disliked gangster movies. Clark Gable—now that was more like it. But she especially liked perky blondes like Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard, who talked back and got their own way. They shared a view of Greta Garbo: two yards of pump water, according to Betty; overrated and moody, according to Joe.

Dorcas came back down to the parlour at last, full of praise for Harry’s motoring knowledge.

“Oh, he sits by the roadside up on the turnpike for hours, miss. He clocks every car going up to London or coming down to The Bells. A lot of the drivers know him and give him a wave. He knows all the makes. He can do a good impression of the noises their engines make, did Mum tell you?”

“He identified it for me just now,” Dorcas said, ignoring a warning frown from Joe. “He picked it out of his lineup of models and showed me. Making the matching big-car noise. It was a Talbot. He’s seen it before on the road. He said I could bring it down to show you, Joe. And here it is.”

She held out a tin replica of an elegant car with grey and black paintwork.

“What model is it?” Joe asked. “It usually tells you underneath.”

Dorcas read out: “1926 Talbot 18/55. It’s one of those with the spare wheel over the driver’s side running board. Big cars—you can get seven passengers in there, and they have a reputation for being fast. Plush inside, too. I rode in one once. It has grey velvet upholstery, I remember, and little silver holders to put your nosegays in.”

“May I see it?” Joe took it from her hand and peered at it, then he placed it carefully on the table. “Do you recognise the type, Betty?”

Betty gave him a shy smile. “Oh, sir, I don’t know one car from another—except for a Model T Ford, perhaps. A lad I know in town—his dad’s got one of those. Lends it to Tom at the weekends sometimes.” She blushed and bit her lip. “But that one—no. Looks expensive to me. I wouldn’t be giving a car like that a second look. Harry may have seen one on the main road.”

“I expect so. Well, thank you so much for your hospitality and your information, Betty. Must be getting back. Many phone calls to make before lunch.”

“DID YOU NOTICE the marks, Joe?”

“I did. The child had done them himself, I think.”

“Yes, in indelible pencil. He’d scratched off whatever it said originally on the number plate and put his own letters on. Two of them: ‘O’ and another ‘O.’ Not much is it?”

“Considering he can only do two letters anyway, it’s next to nothing!”

“But—number plates—I wonder. Boys set much store by them, you know, Joe. I noticed other cars had had their plates painted over by an adult hand. They were the familiar cars he knows in the village. He showed me. There was a Morris, a Ford and a Riley. All with authentic Sussex numbers filled in. That Talbot means something to him. He kept pointing to it and making a noise. He was so earnest I took out a pencil and drew the letters in my notebook to show I’d got it. That calmed him down. They may be part of the registration of a car he’s seen on the road.”