Anthony Horowitz

would join a gang at Jamaica Inn, preying on the wretched sailors who came too close. I would fall madly in love with Edward Rochester, but in my version of the story I would save him from the flames. I would travel to the lost city of Kôr and find immortality in the Pillar of Fire.

Algernon knows about will.

Blackmails him?

Jason had one-night stand with Nancy.

£60

Knickers stolen from drawer

Obviously, that’s Raymond Chandler, who created Philip Marlowe, perhaps the most iconic of private detectives. Algernon Marsh comes from Ngaio Marsh, Madeline Cain from James M. Cain, who wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice and the wonderful Double Indemnity, Nancy Mitchell from Gladys Mitchell, who wrote over sixty crime novels – Philip Larkin was a fan.

As I got back into my car, I reflected on what I had learned. I kept going over and over one thought in my mind. Just about every student who had been at Bromeswell Grove had disliked George Saunders. They’d all wanted him to drop dead. Just the sight of him had been enough to reduce Derek Endicott to a jabbering wreck.

But it had been Frank Parris who had died

But Madeline Cain is also a murderer and she kills Francis Pendleton – FP – the fictional equivalent of Frank Parris.

Madeline Cain is an anagram of Aiden MacNeil.

But the sound was counterbalanced by birdsong, the whirr of weekend lawnmowers, the occasional snatch of Bach or Sidney Bechet through an open window. Everyone knew each other. Everyone got on.

The Union Jack in Giles Kenworthy’s garden. The
lighting in Roderick Browne’s house. The state of May Winslow’s flower beds.’

‘Why are any of them relevant?’

‘They’re all clues.’

Sarah was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and as she had lowered a ladder into the opening, they had both seen it.

Fresh, livid scratches on both her arms

Dudley nodded. ‘I noticed that. An old lady being looked after by the Beresfords’ nanny is hit with a baton in Hampton Wick . . .’

‘And Adam Strauss is pushed down the stairs.’

‘Seems a bit random. I can’t see a connection.’

Hawthorne and Dudley took this in. Marsha Clarke, a woman living in Hampton Wick, had been the victim of what might have been a racist attack. Her assailant might have belonged to a right-wing political party. Giles Kenworthy supported the same party. And he happened to have lived next door to the young woman who had been caring for Marsha.

There might be a connection, but it was definitely an oblique one