Relf left Hatherley's house alone.
Eleanor did not ask to go with him. After Wycliffe's name had come up, he had finished the interview without looking at her. She watched him drive away, then arranged her own journey back to Marsh View.
At nine the next morning he telephoned.
"Have you had breakfast?"
"Not yet."
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
Mrs Fenner brought him eggs. He thanked her and waited until she had left before taking out his notebook.
"Benjamin George Hale. Born in 1955. Six years in the Army, then private security. In Hong Kong from 1980."
"What happened to him afterwards?"
"The records we've found stop in 2003."
"Dead?"
"No matching death registration."
"Any injury?"
"Nothing so far."
Eleanor poured him tea.
"And Wycliffe?"
"He admits knowing Hale."
"Where?"
"France. 1998."
"The year Hatherley met him at Dungeness."
"Yes."
"Did Hale help him leave Britain?"
"I asked. Wycliffe smiled."
She waited.
"That was all?"
"That was all."
Relf put his notebook beside the plate and began eating.
Later that day he went to Hastings.
Dorothy Hale was ninety-one and still lived in her own house. Relf interviewed her alone. When he returned, he brought a photograph of her younger brother.
Ben stood with three other young men, long-haired and wearing flared trousers. He held a pint and looked as though he had been caught halfway through saying something.
Relf turned it over.
Ben after ringing — May 1974
"His sister kept it," he said. "He started ringing at sixteen. Carried on at university."
"Which university?"
"Sussex."
"And Hong Kong?"
"She remembers him talking about ringing there too."
Eleanor examined the faces beside Ben.
"Does she know who these men are?"
"Not all of them."
"So Hale was a ringer."
"Yes."
She looked up.
"You've found something else."
"His shoe size. Dorothy remembers buying him shoes. Ten."
"The mark was an eleven."
"Approximately."
"He might have worn a larger boot."
"He might. We still have no evidence of an injury affecting his right leg."
Eleanor set the photograph down.
Hale knew Bull, Hatherley and Wycliffe. He understood shipping and had helped people disappear. Now they knew he could ring.
But none of that put him beside the tenor rope.
"What did Dorothy last hear from him?" she asked.
"He came back to Britain briefly in 2003. Stayed with an old university friend."
"Does she have a name?"
Relf turned a page.
"Stephen Marris."
Eleanor wrote it down.
"They rang together," he continued. "Marris spent much of his working life overseas. Hong Kong was one of the places."
"Did Dorothy keep in touch with him?"
"Enough to know he had a climbing accident in 1996. His right leg never properly recovered."
Eleanor's pen stopped.
"What else?"
"She remembered his car. An old Jaguar."
"The colour?"
"She couldn't tell me."
Relf left her to finish writing before he added, "I've checked that much. He owns a dark green one."
She looked across the table.
"Where does he live?"
"Twelve miles from Rye."
For a moment neither spoke.
Eleanor read back what she had written: Marris, ringing, Hong Kong, right leg, green Jaguar.
"Did he know Bull?"
"We haven't established that."
"Does he still ring?"
"That needs checking too."
"And he isn't B.H."
"No."
She drew a line beneath Marris's name.
"We've been assuming the appointment and the man downstairs were the same person."
"Yes."
"If Bull met B.H. somewhere else —"
"Then the diary might tell us nothing about who went to the church with him."
Eleanor stood and reached for her coat.
Relf remained seated.
"Not yet."
"He's twelve miles away."
"And once we knock on his door, he'll know we're interested."
She left the coat over the back of her chair.
"What do you want first?"
"The car. His connection to Bull. Anything that helps us ask questions he can't answer with a shrug."
Relf gathered the photograph and his notebook.
This time Eleanor let him work.