The constable said, ‘What are you doing here? It’s the dead of night.’
‘I’m walking on my own ground,’ Oliver said tightly. ‘I’m not afraid of some murderer who might be long gone.’
‘Gone? You think it was a stranger?’ Eal shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. And you have to go back inside this instant. We still have a lot of work to do in the morning.’
‘And what if it rains before that?’ Guinevere asked. ‘Traces could be deleted.’
‘What traces?’
Oliver prodded her with his foot not to tell, but Guinevere said anyway, ‘I was wondering if somebody tried to get to Mr Haydock through the air hole that led into his cage.’
The constable studied her. ‘And why would you wonder about that?’
‘Well, if somebody did try and reach the air hole, pushing through these dense bushes, there might be traces of it. Evidence. If it rains before you investigate in the morning and the footprints fade, you can prove nothing any more.’
The constable studied her. ‘You think you’re some kind of private detective? A real Sherlock Holmes in the making?’
His condescending tone lit Guinevere’s blood. ‘No, I’m just trying to protect an innocent man against a murder charge.’
‘So you know for sure that Bolingbrooke didn’t do it? That’s very impressive considering you don’t know him at all, or local sentiments.’
Guinevere flushed. Dolly seemed to feel her discomfort and licked her neck. She steadied the dog in her arms.
Eal moved to stand in front of Oliver, speaking low. ‘What are you really here for?’
If he had been as tall as Oliver it would have been intimidating, but Eal was a head shorter and seemed to be talking to Oliver’s chest. ‘To take something away? Change the scene? Maybe you were in league with your father. It’s odd you pop up here and the day after somebody dies.’
Before Oliver could say anything to defend himself, a light flashed in the darkness from around the bend of the path. Another man came up to them. He walked fast and determined. ‘Constable Eal?’ he called out.
The constable froze. He stared at the approaching man as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
The man stopped a few paces away from their little group. He surveyed all of them quickly. Guinevere had the impression that not much escaped his dark eyes. He was younger than Eal, lean, with a face full of sharp angles. He didn’t extend a hand to shake, but said in general, ‘Inspector LeFevre. I’ve been assigned to this case to support the local force. I came out here first thing, but apparently I’m already too late. The body has been removed, I heard?’
He gave Eal a cold look as if it had happened on purpose, to frustrate his own investigation.
Eal nodded. ‘No need to have it lying around there any longer. I saw all I need to see.’
It clearly conveyed: this is my case, and I intend to solve it my way. Just leave me alone.
‘Yes, well,’ LeFevre said, ‘I guess I’ll have photos to study.’ He focused on Guinevere and Oliver. ‘And you are?’
‘He’s Bolingbrooke’s son,’ Eal shot, pointing at Oliver, ‘and she just got here today. From London. To help catalogue books or something.’
‘Had you been here before?’ LeFevre asked.
Guinevere said, ‘No, never.’
‘I see. Nice dog.’ There was a flash of a smile on his face.
Guinevere used this moment of goodwill to say, ‘We were just asking the constable about something.’
Eal looked ready to burst a vessel, but Guinevere continued calmly, ‘These bushes here hide the exact location of the air hole leading into the cage in the dungeon in which Mr Haydock died. We wanted to know if there are traces – like footprints, a snapped branch or something – that can prove someone made his way over to the air hole.’
LeFevre studied her expression. ‘I heard the victim was stabbed from close proximity. Can it have been done through the air hole?’
‘Never!’ Eal shot in a ridiculing tone. ‘A child could understand that.’
‘It might have been possible if Haydock stood at the air hole,’ Guinevere said, even though Oliver had argued before it was impossible considering the height of the air hole. A stab would then have landed in Haydock’s face, not his chest. But she had to use LeFevre’s unexpected appearance on Cornisea to get more investigative effort than Constable Eal wanted to make.
Eal shook his head. ‘If Haydock stood at the air hole, it wouldn’t have worked either. He would have backed away when the hand came in. It would have been right in front of his face.’
‘Still, we have to make sure that all ground is covered,’ LeFevre said. He used the powerful torch he carried to shine across the brush, then the ground underneath. He grunted as if he had already seen something, then moved into the brush, careful not to disturb anything in front of him.
‘Seems like he has done this before,’ Oliver said to Guinevere. There was a hint of hope to his voice.
Eal was watching, leaning back on his heels. ‘Inspectors!’ he spat. ‘Always think they can muscle in on someone’s territory. This is my island. My case.’
Guinevere whispered to Oliver, ‘Do you know this LeFevre?’
‘No. I have no idea where he came from all of a sudden. He must have come out here by boat. There’s a little landing pier over there.’ Oliver gestured over his shoulder. ‘Jago uses it all of the time.’
Jago, yes, their missing judge. He had said he couldn’t make it tonight.
But what if he had come over anyway?
‘Is the pier far away?’ Guinevere asked. ‘How many minutes to get from there to here?’
‘Five if you’re walking. Less if you run.’
‘Aha!’ they heard LeFevre call from the other side of the rhododendrons.
Guinevere gave Oliver an expectant look. Dolly sat up in her arms, struggling to be released and run over to see for herself what the inspector had discovered.
Eal leaned forward. ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered.
After a few more minutes, LeFevre returned. He handed the torch back to Eal and said, ‘You’ll make a note of the fact that a person moved through the rhododendrons to the air hole and sat there on his haunches. That’s clear from the depth of the imprints of his or her shoes. I’m inclined to think it was a woman as the foot is quite small. The imprints suggest little to no profile. Could have been a rubber sole.’
Oliver and Guinevere looked at each other. A small foot. Tegen?
LeFevre said, ‘This idea of yours wasn’t half bad.’ He looked at Oliver. ‘I understand the dungeon has more than one cage?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they’re identical in setup? They all have an air hole and it’s all in the same place?’
‘Yes.’ Oliver was obviously puzzled as to what the inspector was driving at.
‘Good.’ LeFevre turned to Eal. ‘You stay out here. In a few minutes you go over to an air hole. Not the one of the cage in which the murder