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you.” When there were two inches of cold water in the tub I turned off the taps, then took Mrs. Miller’s hair dryer from its stand above her washbasin. Holding it in my hands, I turned to Payne.
    â€œNow, Sergeant, you saw the television film of Marion Miller, apparently unlocking a door as she made her escape. She was certainly escaping, but not by turning a key…”
    For the first time I was ahead of Payne. He watched me cautiously, an unlit cigarette between his lips, as I transferred the hair dryer to my right hand and held the plug in my left.
    â€œSo, let’s assume that Miller was taking a bath that Saturday morning. At about 8:15 Marion and her brother come into the bathroom. Perhaps they ask a special favor, the answer to which they already know, a last chance for their father to save his life.”
    â€œDoctor…” Payne was shaking his head, clearly disappointed in me. “That’s pure speculation.”
    â€œAll right, I’m guessing there. But of this bit I’m sure.” I placed the hair dryer on its stand above Miller’s washbasin. “Marion picks up the hair dryer and plugs it into the socket. To do this she has to step around the edge of the basin and reach forward with her left hand. Sadly for the father, these childproof sockets aren’t quite childproof enough…”
    I pushed the plug into the socket, then made the familiar turn, press, turn again motion which the stricken child in the TV film had made so memorable. The hair dryer whirred into life, blowing hot air across my face.
    â€œShe’s now holding the dryer in her left hand by the pistol grip—it’s difficult to hold the thing any other way—and there’s a rush of air that blows her fringe into her eyes. She pushes it away with her right hand…” I made the second gesture that we had seen in the film, smoothing down the few hairs that danced across my forehead.
    Then I stepped back and tossed the hair dryer into the bath. There was a violent hiss, and a muffled flash that jolted the sides of the bath, lighting up the mirrors around us. Scalded water spat across Payne and myself, spraying fine drops across the ceiling.
    Its fuse blown, the hair dryer lay inertly below the seething water. I switched it off at the socket and disconnected the plug. Payne was drying his jacket with one of Mrs. Miller’s face towels.
    â€œYou heard the hiss, Sergeant—something that poor child will never forget. In fact, it’s probably the last thing she remembers.”
    â€œI won’t forget it either, Doctor.” Payne gingerly lifted the hair dryer by its cord from the bath. “To be honest, I hadn’t worked out the plug business, but I knew she wasn’t opening a lock.”
    â€œOf course not. Why should that have traumatized her? Only an overwhelming crisis would have buried itself so deep in her mind, something that involved matters of life and death, or beyond life and death.”
    â€œLike deciding to kill her father?”
    â€œExactly—though I don’t think she did kill him, and she may well know it. She stunned him with the hair dryer, and her brother then killed him with the kitchen knife.”
    Payne leaned over the bath taps and released the water from the tub. “So you think they planned it? The brother and sister together?”
    â€œYes, they planned it, just as all the murders at Pangbourne Village were planned. You know that, Sergeant. In fact, you’ve known it ever since my first visit here.”
    â€œThat leads to another question, Doctor. The question—who actually carried out the Pangbourne Massacre?”
    â€œThe children, without any doubt. It sounds so outlandish, I’m not even sure if I believe it myself. There’s no proof and we may not find any. All the same, I’m certain that the Pangbourne parents, one by one, were killed by their own children.”
    We stood in the