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display of normality was likely to hold it at bay. So, summoning a grin, I went in to join her.
    “Where
have
you been, Robin?” she asked, glaring round at Brillo’s warning yelp.
    “Sorry. I was . . .” A phrase came unbidden to my mind. “Lost in thought.”
    “Didn’t you do all the thinking you needed to on your walk? I was hoping you’d have made up your mind by now.”
    “Don’t worry. I have.”
    “So you
will
be joining the company?”
    “The company?” My frown must have puzzled her. For the moment, Timariot & Small, with or without me, seemed too trivial a subject to discuss. “Well . . .” I hesitated, struggling to remember just what I
had
decided. “Yes.”
    “Oh, how wonderful.” She jumped up and kissed me. “Your father would have been so pleased.”
    “Would he?”
    “I must phone Larry. He’ll be delighted.” She bustled out into the hall, leaving me staring vacantly into space. By rights, I should be the one using the telephone. But to call the police, not Uncle Larry. I smiled ruefully. It would be quicker to drive to the police station in Petersfield than wait for my mother to come off the line. Still, at least she’d given me—
    The newsreader’s voice cut across my thoughts.
“West Mercia police have now charged the man they’ve been holding since yesterday with the murders of Louise Paxton and Oscar Bantock at Kington in Herefordshire last week. Shaun Andrew Naylor, a twenty-eight-year-old electrician from Bermondsey, south London, has also been charged with the rape of Lady Paxton. He will appear before Worcester magistrates tomorrow morning. Here’s our Midlands crime correspondent, David Murray.”
    And there
was
David Murray, a sloppily dressed figure in front of Worcester police station, mouthing the customary platitudes at the fag end of what looked to have been a bad day. I hardly heard what he said. A name, an age, an occupation and an approximate address. That was all we were getting. And all we would get, until the trial. Unless we were looking for an excuse, of course. Like I was. They’d charged him. With rape as well as murder. They must have all the evidence they wanted. They didn’t need my obscure little piece of the jigsaw. I’d just be wasting their time by telling them. Wouldn’t I?
     
    It seemed sensible, in the end, to sleep on the problem. Easier, anyway, than explaining it to my mother. But sleep wouldn’t play along. My first idle day after six on the hoof left me alert and thoughtful long past midnight. I lay in my bed, listening to the owl-hoots and fox-barks that drifted in through the window, to the muffled fluttering of bats and the distant scurrying of other things I couldn’t name.
    Eventually, I realized there was only one thing for it. It was a solution that neatly spared me a cross-examination by my mother, while just as neatly salving my conscience. Getting out of bed as quietly as I could, I tiptoed down to the hall, carried the telephone into the sitting-room, closed the door over the trailing lead and dialled the number given in the paper for West Mercia C.I.D.’s incident room. But the only answer was a recorded message, to which I responded with one of my own.
    “My name is Robin Timariot. I’ve just returned home after walking Offa’s Dyke and only now heard about the Kington killings. I believe I may have met Lady Paxton near Kington during the early evening of July seventeenth. If I can be of any assistance, please ring me on Petersfield 733984.”
    I put the telephone down with a sensation of relief. The ball was in their court now. Perhaps they wouldn’t call back. Perhaps they wouldn’t even listen to the message. Then I’d be able to say I’d done my duty. If they chose to neglect theirs, I wouldn’t be to blame. So I told myself, anyway, as I crept back up to bed.
     
    Uncle Larry’s reaction to my decision to accept the post of works director of Timariot & Small was to call an informal board meeting the