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for their misery and for their guilt. Hilary Robarts makes a convenient scapegoat.”
    It was a disagreeable story and, coming as it did after the impact of the portrait, it provoked in Dalgliesh a mixture of depression and foreboding which he tried to shake off as irrational. He was glad to let the subject drop and they drove insilence until he left her at the gate of Martyr’s Cottage. To his surprise she held out her hand and gave him, once again, that extraordinary, attractive smile.
    “I’m glad you stopped for the children. I’ll see you, then, on Thursday night. You will be able to make your own assessment of Hilary Robarts and compare the woman with the portrait.”

6
    As the Jaguar crested the headland, Neil Pascoe was dumping rubbish into one of the two dustbins outside the caravan, two plastic bags of empty tins of soup and baby food, soiled disposable napkins, vegetable peelings and squashed cartons, already malodorous despite his careful sealing of the bags. Firmly replacing the lid, he marvelled, as he always did, at the difference one girl and an eighteen-month-old baby could make to the volume of household waste. Climbing back into the caravan, he said: “A Jag has just passed. It looks as if Miss Dalgliesh’s nephew is back.”
    Amy, fitting a recalcitrant new ribbon to the ancient typewriter, didn’t bother to look up.
    “The detective. Perhaps he’s come to help catch the Whistler.”
    “That isn’t his job. The Whistler is nothing to do with the Met Police. It’s probably just a holiday. Or perhaps he’s here to decide what to do with the mill. He can hardly live here and work in London.”
    “So why don’t you ask him if we can have it? Rent-free, of course. We could caretake, see that no one squats. You’re alwayssaying it’s antisocial for people to have second homes or leave property empty. Go on, have a word with him. I dare you. Or I will if you’re too scared.”
    It was, he knew, less a suggestion than a half-serious threat. But for a moment, gladdened by her easy assumption that they were a couple, that she wasn’t thinking of leaving him, he actually entertained the idea as a feasible solution to all their problems. Well, almost all. But a glance round the caravan restored him to reality. It was becoming difficult to remember how it had looked fifteen months ago, before Amy and Timmy had entered his life; the homemade shelves of orange boxes ranged against the wall which had held his books, the two mugs, two plates and one soup bowl, which had been sufficient for his needs, neatly stacked in the cupboard, the excessive cleanliness of the small kitchen and lavatory, his bed smooth under the coverlet of knitted woollen squares, the single hanging cupboard which had been adequate for his meagre wardrobe, his other possessions boxed and tidily stowed in the chest under the seat. It wasn’t that Amy was dirty; she was continually washing herself, her hair, her few clothes. He spent hours carrying water from the tap outside Cliff Cottage to which they had access. He was continually having to fetch new Calor-gas cylinders from the general store in Lydsett Village, and steam from the almost constantly boiling kettle made the caravan a damp mist. But she was chronically untidy: her clothes lying where she had dropped them, shoes kicked under the table, knickers and bras stuffed beneath cushions and Timmy’s toys littering the floor and tabletop. The make-up, which seemed to be her sole extravagance, cluttered the single shelf in the cramped shower, and he would find half-empty, opened jars and bottles in the food cupboard. He smiled as he pictured Commander Adam Dalgliesh, that no doubt fastidious widower,making his way through the accumulated mess to discuss their suitability as caretakers at Larksoken Mill.
    And then there were the animals. She was incurably sentimental about wildlife, and they were seldom without some maimed, deserted or starving creatures. Seagulls, their wings