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—determinism / free will / will of God etc.

—valuable book now missing = motive for murder (?)

Laurence clicked the top back on the pen and studied his handiwork.

“There,” he said. “Forget the message. These are all things we know—or at leastsuspect. Some are more speculative than others, admittedly, but for the moment let’s say these things are all true and see where it leads us.”

Pettifer sighed.

Then she walked over and stood next to him.

“Okay. Where?”

He considered the board. It was like looking at a selection of puzzle pieces. Some of them appeared to fit together, but for now he couldn’t tell which ones even came from the same puzzle.

One thing was becoming clear to him though.

“It suggests to me very strongly that Christopher Shaw is not our killer.”

“How so?”

“Think about it.”

Pettifer did not reply for a few seconds, and he could tell she saw it too. It was possible she didn’t want to acknowledge it, given that Shaw was currently the only suspect on their radar, but the facts remained.

“All right,” she said.

“Because if we assumethe bookwas the motive,” Laurence said, “then Shaw had no reason to kill Alan Hobbes. For one thing, he would surely have disconnected the camera before committing the theft. But more important, by the time Hobbes was killed, the book wasalready in his possession. There would have been no need for him to murder Hobbes for it.”

“Assuming the book was the motive.”

“Which, as I said, is what we’re doing for the purposes of this exercise.”

“No, I see a question mark next to motive.”

Laurence used the cloth to rub it away.

“That’s better,” he said. “Thank you. The book is now the motive for the killing. Ta-da. But not the motive for Christopher Shaw. For someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Brilliant. Shall we call him Edward?”

“Not necessarily. But whoever murdered Hobbes, perhaps he arrived at the propertyafterChristopher Shaw had already left. He discovered the book was missing and then tortured Alan Hobbes in the hope of obtaining it. But, of course, Hobbes would not have known where it was, because in the footage he appears to be asleep when the book was stolen.”

“Which leaves us nowhere,” Pettifer said.

Laurence shrugged.

“If that is where we are, then it is better for us to know,” he said. “And nothing is wasted. All the people we have spoken to needed to be investigated. And it still remains imperative for us to find Christopher Shaw. If any of this is right, then he is in possession of something people are prepared to kill for.”

“However ridiculouswemight find the idea.”

“Exactly.”

Pettifer sighed again. Thought for a moment.