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slanting stuff that stung my face and seeped through my trousers and shoes.
    Clipton, it appeared, was having the last laugh on us. The only good thing about it, I thought, was that the mourners would be in a hurry to leave. And they were. His daughter remained; along with the man I’d seen her with at the inquest. Holding his hand, and clutching a handkerchief, she stared down at the coffin as the vicar snatched a surreptitious and anxious glance at his watch.
    Now was my chance and I was going to take it. I had to repeat myself before I penetrated her sorrow.
    ‘I’m sorry about your father.’ I wasn’t, but I had to observe the niceties.
    She twitched her lips in the ghost of a smile that never touched her eyes. Her partner smiled encouragingly at her.
    ‘Are you ready, Christine?’ he asked gently.
    She nodded and the three of us began to move off. The vicar and curate followed. Ahead of us, huddled by the cars, were the other mourners, faces screwed up against the harshness of the weather. My face was so wet that the rain ran off it in rivulets. My trousers were clinging to my legs like melted plastic. But what was a bit of rain to me? I’d known worse.
    I was wondering how to broach the subject when she became conscious that I was beside her.
    ‘Did you work with my father?’ she said, her voice seeming to come from a great distance away.
    Poor cow, she looked so bedraggled and forlorn, her fair hair was dark with the rain and plastered to her head. Her eyes held such pain and sorrow that told me she must have loved him. I tried to imagine Clipton as a loving father, but couldn’t.
    ‘No. But I knew him through his work.’ It seemed to satisfy her. Her partner was too concerned about her to detect any double meaning or sinister intent.
    ‘I can’t think what he was doing on the Isle of Wight,’ she suddenly burst out. I could see it was a question that had been vexing her ever since she had heard the news of his death.
    For a spilt second I tossed up what to say and decided that half the truth might get me somewhere – where, I didn’t know, and only time and daring would tell. ‘I think he might have been coming to see me.’
    That brought her up sharply. She stopped to stare at me whilst over her shoulder I could see the other mourners getting impatient and beginning to clamber into their cars.
    ‘Why?’
    Before I could answer the husband spoke. ‘You didn’t say at the inquest?’
    He’d noticed me there then. ‘No.’
    ‘Why was he coming to see you?’ she repeated, a dazed expression on her face.
    ‘Because of Andover.’
    ‘But… I thought… what do you mean?’
    ‘Come on, honey, let’s get out of the rain, the other mourners are waiting.’
    ‘No.’ She shook him off and turned a penetrating gaze upon me as though I had suddenly woken her from sleepwalking. ‘What do you mean?’
    Time to be economical with the truth. ‘Your father and I met four years ago in the course of his work. I can’t tell you much about it, you understand.’ She nodded enthusiastically. I had made it sound as if we were both working on counter-espionage. ‘We were looking for someone called Andover. We didn’t find him. I live on the Isle of Wight. Your father could have been coming to tell me he had found Andover.’
    ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t…’
    ‘Please, honey, you’re soaked.’
    I scowled at him. ‘Can you recall exactly what your father said?’
    Her brow furrowed in thought. ‘All I can remember is that he said, I must go to Andover.
    No, hold on, he said, I’m going to see Andover.’
    ‘He said “see”?’
    ‘Yes, I remember now because I thought it was an odd expression. You might go and see Naples but you don’t usually say I must go and see Andover.’
    ‘Did he leave any notes, memoirs, records, a diary?’
    ‘No. The police asked me that. His colleagues…’ I saw her glance go beyond me and knew that they were there. They had been watching me, and