Relf brought Eleanor a photocopy the following morning.
The erased entry had been recovered:
B.H. — Rye — tenor after 6
Beneath it, more faintly:
final key?
Eleanor read both lines twice.
"An appointment?"
"That's how it looks."
"With someone who could help him examine the tenor."
"Possibly."
She looked at the initials again.
"The man from Brookland?"
"We need to find out who B.H. is before we connect the two."
"Or whether it's a person."
Relf nodded.
Bull's address book offered no obvious match. His telephone contained eleven surnames beginning with H and nine first names beginning with B. None belonged to someone who fitted the witnesses' accounts.
His emails took longer.
By lunchtime the police had four plausible names. By three they had two. By five, both remaining candidates had been ruled out by their whereabouts on the relevant dates.
Eleanor found Relf in a café with a cup of tea cooling in front of him.
"Anything?"
He shook his head.
She sat opposite him.
"Bull might have used those letters for a place. Or something in his research."
"We're checking his papers."
"What about old friends?"
"They don't all appear in his current contacts."
"His university might help."
Relf looked up.
"With B.H.?"
"Or with the man who went to the churches. Bull wasn't a ringer, but someone he'd known at university could have been."
"That depends on their having been there together."
"Yes."
"And on the companion being B.H."
"I know. But it gives us somewhere to look."
He pulled his tea towards him.
"I'll have someone follow it up."
The useful recollection came from Bull's sister.
Margaret lived in Canterbury. She received them with the weary patience of someone accustomed to explaining her brother.
Relf showed her the diary entry. She put on her spectacles and held the copy nearer the window.
"B.H. No, I'm sorry."
"Any friend whose name might fit?"
"Probably several. Adrian knew everybody and liked about six of them."
Eleanor smiled.
Margaret looked at her.
"Did you know him?"
"No."
"He could be exhausting."
"I've begun to gather that."
"He could also be very good company. Usually when you were trying to leave."
She put the photocopy on the table.
They talked about his work, his marriage and the years he had spent researching the Marsh. Margaret had heard more about smuggling than she had ever wished to know, but she could not recall his mentioning a cipher.
"He had been excited about something," she said. "For most of the last year."
"What did he tell you?" Eleanor asked.
"That people had misunderstood the old gangs."
"How?"
"He said we were all too interested in what they carried."
Relf opened his notebook.
"Do you remember his words?"
Margaret thought.
"Something like, 'The goods aren't the clever part. The clever part is the organisation.'"
"Did he explain what he meant?"
"No. He liked to keep something back. Then, when you'd lost interest, he'd tell you another little bit."
"Was anyone working with him?"
She hesitated.
"There was someone helping. I don't know in what way."
"Do you have a name?"
"Bernard. I never knew his surname."
Relf wrote it down.
"Had Adrian known him long?"
"Oh, years. Forty, perhaps more."
"From university?"
"No. They met abroad."
Eleanor glanced at the diary copy.
"Where?"
"Hong Kong."
Relf's pen paused, then moved again.
"When would that have been?"
"Late seventies, I think. Adrian went out several times. Research at first, then conferences. He had friends there."
"Was Bernard British?"
"Yes."
"Did you meet him?"
"Once. Years ago."
"What do you remember?"
"He was quite tall. Dark-haired then. Pleasant, but rather formal."
"Anything else? His voice, perhaps, or the way he walked?"
"He walked normally when I met him."
Relf waited while she tried to remember more.
"But that was before his accident."
"What accident?"
"I don't know much about it. Adrian told me later that Bernard had been badly hurt."
"Where?"
"Hong Kong, I think. It might have been somewhere nearby."
"And when?"
"Sometime in the eighties."
"Did Adrian say what injuries he'd had?"
Margaret looked uncertain.
"I believe there was something wrong with his leg."
Relf asked whether she remembered which leg. She did not.
He went back through the dates with her, separating what she remembered for herself from what Adrian had told her. Margaret answered as well as she could, growing quieter whenever she had to say she did not know.
Before they left, Eleanor thanked her.
"I wish I could give you his full name," Margaret said.
"So do we," Relf replied.
On the pavement, Eleanor stopped beside the car.
"Bernard. If his surname begins with H—"
"We don't know that it does."
"But he knew Bull, helped him with the research and had a leg injury."
"He's someone we need to find."
Relf unlocked the car.
Eleanor remained by the passenger door.
"His university could still matter."
"How?"
"If Bull knew him before the accident, they may have known each other while Bernard was ringing. The injury doesn't tell us where he learned."
"No," Relf said. "It doesn't."
She got in.
For the first time they had a name to search for, even if it was only half a name. Eleanor wrote Bernard beside the copied initials in her notebook. She left a space after it.
They were on the A21 when Relf's telephone rang.
He answered through the car's hands-free system. Eleanor heard only his side of the conversation at first.
"How confident are you?"
He listened.
"And the tread?"
Another pause.
"Send me the report."
When he ended the call, she closed her notebook.
"The marks beside the tenor rope?"
"Yes. They think the wear pattern is consistent with the gait we're looking at."
"The right leg?"
"Yes."
"Have they identified the footwear?"
"Not yet. They're looking at an imported make."
"From where?"
"They haven't said."
Eleanor watched the road ahead.
"Hong Kong would fit."
Relf glanced at her.
"It would. So would plenty of other places."
"We have Bernard, an injury and Bull's diary."
"We have a woman remembering a friend of her brother's. She thinks the accident happened in Hong Kong and thinks it affected his leg. The diary still says B.H."
Eleanor looked down at the space she had left after the name.
"You could let me be pleased we've found something."
"I'm pleased. I'd be more pleased with a surname."
She opened the notebook again.
The telephone rang a second time.
"Relf."
This time the caller's voice came clearly through the speakers.
"We've got a possible manufacturer for the footwear."
"Go on."
"Hong Kong."
Eleanor turned towards Relf. He kept his eyes on the road.
"Possible?" he asked.
"We need to check the pattern against the relevant models. I'll send what we have."
"Thank you."
The call ended.
Eleanor picked up her pen.
"I'll put a question mark beside it."
"Good."
She wrote Hong Kong beneath Bernard's name.
Relf glanced across before she closed the book.
"And you can keep the question mark there until we know."