“I won’t keep you, Constable.” Kincaid smiled. “And I can’t speak for your guv’nor, but I’m about ready to salvage what little sleep I can from this night.”

Late as the hour was, a few lights still burned in the pub. Deveney rapped sharply on the glass pane of the door, and in a moment a shadowy form slid back the bolts.

“Come in, come in,” the man said as he opened the door. “Take the chill off. I’m Brian Genovase, by the way,” he added, holding out a hand to Kincaid and Gemma in turn as they crowded in behind Deveney.

The pub was surprisingly small. They had entered directly into the right-hand alcove, where a handful of tables surrounded a stone hearth. To their left the length of the bar occupied the pub’s center, and beyond that a few more tables were grouped to make up the dining area.

“It’s kind of you to wait up, Brian,” Deveney said as he went to the hearth and stood rubbing his hands above the still-glowing embers.

“Couldn’t sleep. Not with wondering what was going on up there.” Genovase tilted his head towards the Gilberts’. “The whole village is buzzing, but no one quite had the nerve to brave the cordon and bring back a report. I gave it a try, but the constable on the gate persuaded me otherwise.” As he spoke he slipped behind the bar, and Kincaid saw him more clearly. A large man with dark hair going gray and the beginnings of a belly, he had a pleasant face and quick smile. “You’ll need something to warm you up from the inside,” he said, pulling a bottle of Glenfiddich from the shelf, “and while you’re at it you can tell me all that’s fit to print. So to speak.” His flashed a grin at them and favored Gemma with a wink.

They’d followed him to the bar, unresisting as lemmings drawn towards the cliff. As Genovase tilted the bottle over the fourth glass, Gemma suddenly put out a restraining hand. “No, thank you, but I don’t think I can manage it. I’m just about out on my feet. If you’ll just tell me where to put my things-”