Their driver parked the car on the grass verge about forty yards from the cottage. The assortment of vehicles scattered in the immediate vicinity prevented a closer approach.

Three or four newspapermen intercepted the superintendent as he walked along the road. Locals mainly, Pascoe assessed. It was still too soon for anyone to have emerged from the chaos of Saturday morning London. But they would do. Three dead from shotgun wounds was too big to leave in the hands of a local runner.

Backhouse dealt with them kindly but firmly. No, there were no developments yet. They were looking for a man who might be able to help them with their inquiries. Mr Colin Hopkins, yes, that was him. A photograph and description might be issued if it was felt to be necessary.

Pascoe had dropped behind as the questioning proceeded. When Backhouse and his interrogators stopped in front of the cottage, he found himself, deliberately blank-minded, looking up the side of the building between the garage and the wall. There was activity in the back garden and beyond. They would be looking for the weapon. Everything they found would be carefully scrutinized, of course, but it was the weapon they were hoping for. It made a difference if you knew the man you were searching after didn 't have a shotgun in his possession.

He doubted if they'd find it so near. Hurled in panic into the woods over the stream, it would have been found by now. Whereas if the killer were cool enough to make a more deliberate attempt to hide it, he would surely wait until his car had taken him a safe distance from the village.

The killer. He tested himself gently from the vantage point of disembodied objectivity he had scrambled on to in the last two hours. Was he ready yet to consider whether Colin… why Colin…