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back to the solarium, where she was planning to snooze out the afternoon, via Reception. Although Ankle-Deep Arkwright had said it was Lindy Galton's day off, he might have been lying, and there was a long chance that the girl would once again be on reception duty.
    As it turned out, there was no one behind the counter in the foyer. That was not unusual. Brotherton Hall had two busy times for registration. Day guests arrived before ten, and most of those who were staying longer would check in between four and six, in time for the delights of their first cottage cheese evening meal. For the rest of the day, whoever was on reception duty was often busy elsewhere, returning to the foyer at a summons from the bell-push on the counter.
    Mrs Pargeter didn't press the bell-push. Her business at Reception could be more easily accomplished without the help of a receptionist. Turning to check that there was no one watching, she slipped behind the counter.
    In spite of everything Ankle-Deep Arkwright had said, she was still convinced of a link between the body removed the previous night and the anguished voice she had heard the morning before. For there to be no connection was too much of a coincidence.
    The most likely scenario was that the voice had belonged to the dead girl, her prophecy 'They're going to kill me, and nobody can stop them' having been horribly fulfilled.
    But who 'they' were, and how 'they' were going to kill her, were questions to whose answers Mrs Pargeter had, without further research, no clues at all.
    There were other questions, though, to which she might be able to find answers. Like whether Jenny Hargreaves' registration details had been tampered with.
    Because if it had been the dead girl whom Mrs Pargeter had heard speaking on the last morning of her life, then she had certainly checked in to Brotherton Hall before six-forty the previous evening, the time to which Ankle-Deep Arkwright had testified.
    But computer records could easily be amended. Now she came to think of it, Airs Pargeter was struck by the ease with which Ank had found the relevant piece of print-out.
    Almost as if he had been waiting to be asked for it.
    Mrs Pargeter didn't know much about computers, but nor apparently did the reception staff at Brotherton Hall. Just in front of the keyboard, out of sight to the registering guests, a typewritten idiot's guide to the system had been Sellotaped on to the counter.
    The relevant section of these instructions read:
    PRESS 'G' FOR FULL GUEST LIST. MOVE CURSOR TO NAME AND PRESS 'RETURN' TO BRING INDIVIDUAL DETAILS UP ON SCREEN. FOR NEW ARRIVALS, PRESS 'R' TO BRING BLANK REGISTRATION FORM UP ON SCREEN.
    Even a computer illiterate like Mrs Pargeter could cope with that. A single press of the 'G' key filled the screen with surnames, listed alphabetically. After a couple of false attempts she found the key which controlled the cursor and moved it down the left-hand side of the screen.
    There was no name between 'HADLEIGH' and 'HARRIS'.
    So far as the Brotherton Hall computer was concerned, Jenny Hargreaves had never existed.
    Mrs Pargeter was about to press 'R' to bring on to the screen a blank registration form – or maybe a registration from with Jenny Hargreaves' details hastily keyed in – when she heard the click of Ankle-Deep Arkwright's office door opening behind her and the sound of angry voices.
    She abandoned the computer and moved to occupy a low armchair behind a pot of tall ferns, with an agility surprising for a woman in her late sixties.
    She heard Ank's voice first, aggrieved and whining; it was the voice of a man who knew he was losing the argument.
    'That's unfair! We had a deal!'
    The voice that answered was equally sure that its owner was winning the argument. It was a voice over which no shadow of doubt had ever dared to cast itself.
    'There are so many ways in which you've failed to fulfil your side of the deal that it's hardly worth discussing, Mr Arkwright!'
    It was the voice