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together and head down to the boathouse together. If we can’t find Charlie, then we’ll go without him.’ He looked at the three of us. ‘Agreed?’
    Everyone nodded.
    *
    Twenty minutes later – and with still no sign of Charlie – the four of us left the house through the back door, leaving it unlocked so we could get back in.
    I have to admit I was getting more and more nervous by this point. Charlie had been gone more than two hours now and, whether he’d been taking the time to contemplate the world or not, he should have been back before now. Which left three alternatives. One, he’d left the island, as Marla had first suggested. Two, something bad had happened to him, although God knows what it could be. Or three – and I liked the thought of this the least – he was hiding somewhere, planning to murder us one by one, thereby getting rid of all the people who could incriminate him for the murder of Rachel Skinner.
    As we walked the two hundred yards or so along the narrow path that wound through the pine wood down to the jetty, we all called his name and looked about us, but there was no answer, nor any sign of any other human presence. All was silent, bar the sound of the wind blowing through the trees, and the odd snippet of birdsong. It was as if this dark, rocky island had swallowed Charlie up altogether.
    The jetty was empty, the speedboat that had brought us here nowhere to be seen. Thirty yards further along the beach, and partly obscured by a large weeping willow that looked out of place among the pines, was the boathouse, a single-storey wooden structure with double doors.
    We stopped in front of it, standing in a row on the narrow strip of sand and pebbles.
    â€˜It doesn’t look like he’s left the island,’ said Crispin. ‘The doors are shut and there are no drag marks from the boat.’
    â€˜They’re unlocked, though,’ said Luke, gently pulling on one of the handles. The door opened with a long whining creak to a curtain of darkness beyond. ‘Has anyone got a torch?’
    â€˜I have,’ said Crispin, pulling one free from his backpack.
    Luke opened the door as far as it would go then did the same with the other one, revealing an empty room that smelled vaguely of engine oil. ‘There it is. On the wall there.’
    Crispin shone his torch up to where Luke was pointing. The inflatable boat was little more than a dinghy and didn’t look like it would hold six people. There was no engine attached and it didn’t even appear to have been properly inflated.
    Then the torch picked up the deep slash marks running symmetrically down each section.
    â€˜Oh, Christ, what’s going on now?’ said Marla, staring up at the damage.
    â€˜This is getting bad,’ said Luke quietly. He no longer seemed big and strong. Now he looked pale and scared and the expression in his eyes – that of a man frozen in the path of an oncoming locomotive – was exactly the same as I remembered it being immediately after Rachel’s murder. ‘What the fuck are we meant to do now?’
    It was Crispin who answered him. ‘We don’t panic. That’s essential. We stay calm and we work out what to do next.’
    Marla frowned. ‘Who did this? Surely it wouldn’t have been Charlie. Because that means he’s trapped himself on the island. What about that man I saw at the window last night? Could it have been him?’
    â€˜But Charlie thought that was Pat,’ I said, ‘and his boat’s gone.’
    â€˜Maybe he waited here overnight and took Charlie back,’ said Crispin, shining his torch round the floor space, its beam picking up a couple of boxes in one corner.
    I shook my head. ‘No. That doesn’t make any sense. He’s…’
    â€˜Jesus Christ!’ Crispin’s words reverberated through the gloom like gunshots.
    We all looked where his torch was