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pad, decide what we are going to play. The first night is always important. Keep the wine. Take it back to your room. They won’t mind.’
    ‘Thank you,’ I said again.
    I sat back in the chair, drinking in the last of the sun, swallowing gulps of ozone fresh air and white wine, nibbling a few carrot sticks. No lunch.
    I had become so bewitched with Latching, I had forgotten that there were other wonderful places along the UK coast. And this was one of them. The Purbeck Way. The Jurassic cliffs. Chuck should write a song about the Dancing Ledge. Maybe I’d think up some lyrics.
    I sat till the sun chilled my skin and I had to shrug on the fleece. Time to find Maddy and work out how I was going to follow her. I had not asked Chuck if she knew about the threats. Probably not.
    The first evening programme of the festival was so complicated, I wondered how I was ever going to keep Maddy in sight. Five different venues. Some needing stroller tickets, some free. The pub ones were free. Buy a drink instead.
    The drummer was the magnet. If I worked out where he was playing, then it would be easier to follow Maddy. She might think I was competition. Hard cheese. I was ten years older than him. I searched through the programme. The drummer on the cruise quartet was Ross Knighton. He was also in Chuck Peters’ band. Now there’s a surprise. And tonight was a tribute to Louis Armstrong. I could not believe my luck. If DCI James was also there, then I would have stumbled into happiness.
    I would take the wine back to my room. No one would be bothered. Perhaps rules were lax while the jazz festival was on. Jazz is different. Jazz is a release of the soul. Not many people know that.
    Perhaps Chuck Peters ran up a big bill.
     
    I ran into Maddy outside the lounge, still clutching the bottle of wine. She looked at me, her eyes flashing.
    ‘Has my dad paid you to follow me?’ she asked suspiciously.
    ‘Sort of,’ I said. I said nothing about the threats. ‘He’s worried about you.’
    ‘I know what I’m doing,’ she said.
    ‘That’s great. Good for you. But he doesn’t know what you are doing. I know what it’s like, being young and infatuated by a musician. It happens all the time. I’ve been there, got the T-shirt.’
    For a second, she relaxed and grinned. It was a breakthrough. She obviously realized that I was not going to stop her doing what she wanted to do.
    ‘My remit is to make sure you get back to the hotel safely,’ I went on. ‘Is that unreasonable? You can spend as much time as you like watching Ross banging the life out of his drum kit. I shall maintain a certain distance as I have concerns about damage to my hearing.’
    ‘And you won’t interfere?’ she asked suspiciously.
    ‘I promise.’
    ‘That’s all right then.’ It was a grudging acceptance.
    ‘I’ll give you my mobile phone number. So if you feel you need my help in any way whatever, you can call me.’
    I wrote the number on a plain card, not one of my business cards. Maddy would not welcome the news that I was a private investigator. She thought I was one of the volunteer stewards.
    I needed to check out her room but I could hardly follow her upstairs. A drip of icy water on my T-shirt came like an answer. The ice was melting in the wine bucket.
    ‘Fancy finishing this in your room?’ I suggested. ‘Nowhere in public as you are underage for alcohol.’
    ‘I’m fourteen.’
    ‘That’s still underage. If you’ve any lemonade or soda water, we could make spritzers.’ The French did it, didn’t they? Diluted wine for their children.
    ‘OK.’ She was tempted. ‘Sounds cool. Come on up.’
    The top floor showed signs of occupation by a different race. Doors were not closed, people stood chatting in the corridors, instruments lay around. There was strumming on a guitar. It was alive, thriving. None of the stillness and propriety of the other floors.
    Maddy’s room was furnished a lot like mine but it had aconnecting door to the