Four

Nineteen-year-old Pandora Holden had been the Milk Girl for just eight months when she was dispatched by train to Brighton for the August Bank Holiday, but she was already convinced she’d made a questionable life choice. Being the Milk Girl was not as nourishing a job as the name might suggest, and she often felt lonely, despite being accompanied everywhere by the doughty Mr Henderson from Milk Promotion HQ.

‘Remember you’re the Milk Girl, Miss Holden,’ he would exhort her, brightly. ‘And milk is sunny and healthy and packed with vitamins!’

‘I always do remember, Mr Henderson,’ she would reply in a correspondingly positive tone. But though there was a plucky smile on her lips, there was sometimes a lost, faraway look in her fine grey eyes that didn’t say ‘packed with vitamins’ at all.

As it happens, Mr Henderson had cause for discontent on his own account. When he had chosen milk marketing as a career, he had hardly expected the knocks and disappointments it would deal him. Recently he had learned that the slogan he had himself written – ‘You’ll Feel A Lot Better If You Drink More Milk’ (elegantly worded; quite musical; based on observable fact) – was about to be replaced. Very shortly, on posters, on milk-carts and in doctors’ waiting rooms, people would find the crudely imperative ‘DRINKA PINTA MILKA DAY’ – and if there was an uglier set of words, he’d never met them. Those four thumping beats! The mere word ‘DRINKA’! On his journeys with Pandora, when he was quietly pretending to read The Times, he was actually asking himself, over and over, how ‘DRINKA PINTA MILKA DAY’ could possibly be an improvement on ‘You’ll Feel A Lot Better If You Drink More Milk’. How could the public be expected to remember a slogan made up of such tuneless, invented words?

Mr Henderson therefore had his own good reasons for disgruntlement, and it irked him that Pandora – with her youth, beauty and sensational overnight celebrity – should be the one with the sulky face. As he sat across from her on the Brighton express on the Saturday morning before the August Bank Holiday – both of them wordlessly watching picturesque Sussex downland flash past the window – it was with a twinge of deep exasperation that he noticed her perfect poster-girl face settling once again into a frown.

From Pandora’s point of view, however, the dissatisfaction was more than justified. How had it happened? How was being the Milk Girl even a job? Would the name stick to her all her life? This time last year, she’d been a happy schoolgirl at home in North Norfolk, with no connection to dairy products of any kind. On weekdays she had studied towards her Oxbridge Entrance; on Saturdays she’d played netball in a county league (goal shooter); and on Sundays she’d painted dark Expressionist landscapes in oils, with flashes of orange on purple and black, as a means of letting off steam.

Looking back on it now, what an enviable and promising life it had been – with Lady Margaret Hall beckoning, her bedroom smelling so innocently of library books, turpentine and plimsoll whitener, and her parents’ moody Juliette Gréco LP revolving, with crackles, on the portable record player.

Yes, Pandora Holden, the only child of two enthusiastic Cambridge academics, was handsome, clever and a little bit spoiled – and she was also (obviously) a devotee of Jane Austen’s Emma, with whose principal character she had so much in common. Unlike Austen’s heroine, she was brilliant at making an adroitly propelled netball drop vertically through an elevated hoop, and her dark hair had been cropped short to her shapely head, giving her an air of continental chic; unlike Emma, too, she had already, in her young life, experienced the exquisite pain of unrequited love. But it would still be accurate to say that, up to this point, there had been very little to distress or vex her.

And now she was the Milk Girl – famous all over the country, but not for any personal achievement, just through the power of advertising, and to Mr Henderson’s profound annoyance, frown lines were beginning to take up permanent residence on her universally celebrated face.

‘What’s wrong with being famous, Miss Holden?’ he would ask. ‘What’s wrong with everyone loving you?’

If only the milk-marketing people had found a girl less precociously intellectual for the job. But Pandora had studied Doctor Faustus at school, and she worried that by selling her face, she had sold her soul. After all, how would you describe Pandora Holden now? Not as a netballing genius; not as a proto-beatnik; not even as a gamine with a dark romantic history. No, ever since she’d agreed to pose for a few harmless photographs to promote the virtues of milk, that real Pandora had been disappearing behind a big smiling face – the face that launched a thousand milk-carts.

‘It’s the Milk Girl!’ people literally yelled with excitement sometimes, when she was spotted buying a magazine at a station bookstall, or trying on shoes in Regent Street. Sometimes small crowds would gather; at Liverpool Lime Street once, there had been a dangerous stampede. Externally, she dealt with all this beautifully – she was a polite girl with a very sunny smile – but inside, she was increasingly troubled by many questions, some of them deep and existential. And when she reached for a word to describe her unusual predicament, it simply didn’t exist.

‘Miss Holden, we’re here,’ said Mr Henderson.

Their express was drawing into Brighton. Pandora hadn’t noticed. Other passengers were flinging open the doors and leaping out while the train was still in motion, then streaming off towards the ticket barrier, as if in a race to the sea. Henderson had already put on his jacket and hat, and reached down their suitcases from the overhead racks. He was not only her constant travelling companion; he was in charge of logistics, and custodian of the typed itinerary. ‘“Eleven-fifteen, welcome from Mayor of Brighton on concourse”,’ he read aloud, and consulted his watch. ‘It’s ten minutes past. We’ve only just made it. Are you ready?’

Pandora smiled up at him. ‘How do I look?’

‘Better now,’ he admitted. Then, seeing her face fall, he rushed to explain. ‘You looked a bit sad again, miss, that’s all; a bit thoughtful.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’re a very lovely young lady, miss.’

‘I know, Hendy.’

‘Beautiful.’

‘I know.’

‘Frowning could result in permanent lines, and we wouldn’t want that.’

‘You’re right.’

She stood up and smoothed her dress. She had given up discussing with Mr Henderson the metaphysical drawbacks of being the Milk Girl. There was no point. However articulate she was, she always hit the same brick wall. From Mr Henderson’s point of view, you see, she wasn’t a clever young person expressing legitimate philosophical doubt; she was just a needy female fishing for compliments.

‘How many?’ she asked, briskly.

Now that the train was stationary, Henderson opened the door and jumped down, holding his briefcase. He was pretty fit; in his early thirties, but balding, which made him look older. Looking up the platform, he could see a crowd of people in holiday clothes, the glint of brass instruments, and a hand-painted banner with ‘Brighton Welcomes the Milk Girl’ on it. Also, something else – something it was hard to miss.

‘About a hundred,’ he said. ‘Some of them with their Box Brownies ready. A reporter and a photographer, presumably from the local press. Plus a band and a banner, and … um …’ He hesitated.

‘Is there a cow again, Hendy?’

He gave her a steady look. ‘There is, yes.’

‘Ugh!’

‘Look, Miss Holden, it’s no easy matter getting a cow on to a station concourse.’

Pandora laughed. ‘I’m sure it isn’t.’

‘Those slippery hooves! It will have taken four strong men to manhandle her. They’ll have had to hold up traffic.’

‘Don’t worry, Hendy. I’ll be suitably impressed.’

‘The cow is part of the story, after all. We can’t ignore the cow.’

‘No, we can’t.’ It was endearing how Hendy always flushed when the subject turned to dairy animals. ‘But if anyone ever asks me to pretend to milk one again …’

‘I know. I won’t let them. I’ll punch them on the nose.’

She laughed. ‘And what’s after this on our order sheet? Is there anything without cows?’

Opening the briefcase, he produced the itinerary again. ‘Well, the main event, on Monday, will be the House of Hanover Milk Bar grand official opening, complete with announcement of the winner of the Brighton’s Best Knickerbocker Glory competition. That’s on the seafront, at beach level. So there will definitely be cows present there.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. They’ve been grazing in the town all week. But again, it will have taken serious organisation to get them down to the beach, Miss Holden, given that cows can’t manage flights of steps, so—’

‘I know, Hendy. I know.’

‘But there’ll be no cows at the Balmoral, I promise. It’s a small quiet hotel in Hove. Or at the beauty contest today at five, which is in an upstairs ballroom or I’m sure they would have tried.’ He waved the itinerary. ‘More?’ he said, slightly irritably. ‘Or is that enough for your pretty little head to take in?’

She winced at this, but let it pass. She honestly wished she could make a better connection with Hendy; wished she didn’t notice when men said stuff like ‘pretty little head’. Her friends thought she was weirdly exacting. Isobel from netball had recently said to her: ‘Pandora, if you keep letting men’s attitudes to women get in the way, you’ll end up an old maid!’

Pandora held out her hand for him to help her off the train.

‘Here we go again,’ she said. ‘This is it, Hendy. You know the drill.’

‘Yes, miss. But—’

‘Say my name, Hendy.’

‘Yes, miss. Pandora Holden.’

‘Louder.’

‘Pandora Holden.’

‘Thank you.’

She took a deep breath and exhaled, then turned to face the crowd waiting at the end of the platform. How long would it be before the cry went up? Fifteen seconds? Thirty? Would she have taken one step, two steps, three?

It was no time at all.

‘It’s the Milk Girl!’ someone yelled. And then the cow mooed, and the band struck up, and there was the usual charge in her direction, accompanied by excited cheers.

It might seem odd to spend so much time on this young woman’s arrival in town when there are urgent gruesome murders languishing unsolved. After all, there is quite a lot to remember. For example:

three people are dead in the morgue from frenzied milk-bottle attacks last night: an obscure young would-be beauty queen with unaccountable erotic interests; a highly respected AA patrolman; and a viciously witty monologist beloved by millions;

a world-famous skater still lies undiscovered on the ice at the Sports Stadium;

there is a puzzlingly reoriented road-sign north-west of Hassocks, which might (or might not) prove apropos;

unprecedented numbers of top-level villains are milling about on an upper floor of the Metropole Hotel, some of them openly toting weapons;

a hot-headed barber’s son is bent on disproportionate revenge for a perceived slight to his father’s honour;

a popular debonair magician is fearful for his life;

a photographer has been sent on a wild goose chase to a far-flung holiday camp;

a police inspector is beginning to panic about the possibly dire consequences of judging a Knickerbocker Glory competition;

a villainess who poses as a charlady is making last-minute arrangements for a secret summit;

and above all, two valiant and tireless policemen are out and about on the streets of Brighton, acquiring relevant information regarding the first three murders (see above) as quickly as they can, to the selfless neglect of both their breakfasts and their elevenses.

So, it is natural to ask: how does the lovely, troubled Pandora Holden from rural North Norfolk fit in with all of this? At first sight, she doesn’t. And yet it would be foolish to imagine she will have no role to play in subsequent developments, because, for one thing, she’s the Milk Girl.

As it happened, this was not Pandora’s first visit to the town. She knew Brighton well. For a whole academic year, when she was eleven, she had boarded at the famous girls’ school on the cliffs to the east – Lady Laura Laridae – while her parents travelled abroad to study Pacific South Sea Islanders. They were professors of social anthropology who worked and published together, as a pioneering team.

It had been a long year of separation for an eleven-year-old, and afterwards – back in Norfolk – she had tried mostly to forget it. But there were nights at home when the wind blew inland from the sea that she had flashbacks to that great draughty gabled school on the cliffs, with the old sash windows rattling in the dormitory, and her fellow Upper Thirders yelling hysterically that the building was about to collapse. Most of what happened during her year at Lady Laura she kept secret from her parents, for fear of alarming them. Some of it was too naughty; some of it much too embarrassing; some of it the stuff of nightmares. On the latter count, incidentally, all she had said on her return was, ‘Daddy, if you love me, I don’t want to see a Punch & Judy show again, not ever.’

By chance she had fallen in with a colourful crowd of fellow pupils that wouldn’t have been out of place in a girls’ novel – the sort of Michaelmas Term for Moira book skewered so brilliantly by Cedric Carbody’s headmistress impersonations. First among them was Parvati, a rich and dignified Indian girl, brilliant at maths; then Diana, an absent-minded duffer whose hair-parting was always a zigzag, and whose ribbed school stockings bagged at the knees; athletic June, who was nimble of foot and good at archery (a skill that came in handy surprisingly often); and finally the tomboy-ish Wanda, who kept a pony called Rags and loved to cook up mischief.

The five of them got into trouble having midnight feasts (poor Diana, caught red-handed with a jam tart!), or making gunpowder in the chem lab without permission (poor Diana’s eyebrows!), or going AWOL on Sunday afternoons to watch the talent show at the children’s playground on the Undercliff (poor Diana, getting locked out for the night!).

Pandora had not only joined in with such escapades: thanks to the boldness of her personality, she had sometimes starred in them. One Sunday, at the theatre in the children’s playground, when all five of them were overexcited, Wanda had dared Pandora to go up on stage and sing the old music-hall song ‘Let’s Have a Tiddley at the Milk Bar’ – a song that the girls had all recently learned from an old 78 r.p.m. record discovered behind a curtain in the Upper Third Common Room.

But despite having sung along with it a dozen times at school, Pandora forgot the words halfway through, and the performance ended badly. The usually placid pianist actually told her off for wasting everyone’s time, and a man in the audience even booed. Of course, the other girls turned it all to a joke in no time, and they laughed so much about it back at school over the next few days that Diana (it was always Diana) was sick over a banister into an antique Chinese pot.

The incident got them all into trouble, but it was worth it. For the rest of term, Pandora achieved a position her classmates could only dream of: she was the most popular girl in the school. And all because of ‘the Stoat’ (as the girls all privately referred to the headmistress).

‘I have been advised,’ announced Miss Stoater, solemnly, the next day in assembly, ‘that yesterday, Pandora Holden of the Upper Third not only left the school grounds without permission, but gave a public recital of—’ She stopped. She couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘A public recital of a song entitled “Let’s Have a Tiddley at the Milk Bar”.’

She scanned the hall with beady eyes, ready to admonish any girl who tittered.

‘I need hardly remind you girls that such a breach will not be tolerated. Pandora will write out one hundred times, “I must not bring the school into disrepute.” Do you hear me, Pandora? Where are you?’

She peered out over the assembly hall.

‘Here, Miss Stoater,’ said Pandora.

The headmistress then studied the name of the song again. ‘What is a tiddley anyway?’ she asked. ‘What can this song possibly be about? Anyone?’

Several girls put up their hands.

‘Yes? Marjorie?’

‘A drink, Miss Stoater.’

‘Really? But how?’

‘It’s cockney rhyming slang, miss. Tiddley-wink, drink.’

‘Cockney rhyming slang?’ repeated Miss Stoater, in horror. And then she gave vent to the memorable exclamation that all the delighted girls would all repeat to their loved ones for the rest of their lives. ‘Oh, Marjorie!’ she groaned. ‘Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie!’

Pandora sometimes wondered what had happened to the other girls from Lady Laura. Did they know she was now the Milk Girl? On the station concourse, as she approached the welcoming committee, while the band played a rousing ‘Sussex by the Sea’, and the attractive cow shuffled impatiently, she looked around in hope of spotting a familiar face – but, as usual, there was none.

‘Mr Mayor,’ said Henderson, as they arrived. ‘May I present the Milk Girl.’

A cheer went up again. She saw in people’s faces how thrilled they were to see her in the flesh – as if she were an actress, or a princess. Luckily, she was never required to make a formal speech; she just had to say hello to everyone, in a manner to inspire them to go away and drink more milk. And she had to pose for the photographs, of course, which would appear in the local press, so long as they didn’t involve any udder-touching, which was disgusting. But to the Mayor, she couldn’t help saying, out of politeness, ‘I’ve been so looking forward to revisiting Brighton, Mr Mayor. I was here for a year as a girl, at school.’

He smiled, and shook her hand. ‘You’re here to open our new House of Hanover Milk Bar on Monday, I believe?’

‘House of …?’ Pandora was about to query the ridiculous name, but was beaten to it by Mr Henderson. This often happened on their travels.

‘That’s right,’ said Henderson, pleasantly. ‘The House of Hanover. That’s on Monday.’

The Mayor leaned closer. ‘You’re aware, of course, of a certain amount of bad feeling locally towards that milk bar?’ he said, quietly. ‘The brick through the window, and so on? The daubed paint?’

Pandora’s eyes widened. No, she wasn’t aware of this. No one had told her about any bad feeling.

‘Yes, yes,’ said Henderson, airily. ‘But we’re sure it’s nothing to worry about. The opening will go ahead regardless. We’ve been in contact with the local police.’

‘Have we, Hendy?’ queried Pandora, sweetly, suppressing her annoyance.

‘Later,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain later, I promise. There’s going to be a police presence. It’s all arranged.’

‘Could the Milk Girl stand beside the cow, please?’ said the photographer from the Argus.

‘Of course,’ said Pandora, and – with one arm draped round the animal’s neck – struck one of her lively signature poses, her face alight with fun, suggesting that standing beside a cow in a busy South Coast railway terminus was a totally normal and wholesome thing to do, just like drinking milk.

It was while she was thus occupied that the Mayor spoke privately to Henderson about the events of the previous night.

‘I suppose you haven’t heard yet about our sensational milk-bottle murders?’ he said in a low voice.

Henderson blinked. ‘What?’

‘Happened last night. Not everyone knows yet. Three slain! We’re all so shocked. Bodies found covered in glass and milk – and blood, of course – and festooned with those little foil bottle-tops.’

‘But …?’ Henderson, who had spent all his professional life thinking up new ways to associate pints of milk with life, health and happiness, was having trouble with the concept of people being heinously slaughtered with them.

‘They’d been killed?’

‘Yes, they had. With milk bottles!’

‘Oh, my God.’

Henderson looked up to see Pandora returning from the cow photo session, with an expression that said ‘We should go.’ She had noticed that members of the public were already drifting away. The band had stopped playing. Even the cow was bored. The allure of the Milk Girl always seemed to wear off quickly. Henderson nodded and held out his arm to escort her.

But before they could go, the reporter had a question. Henderson prayed it wouldn’t concern how Pandora would set about killing someone with a milk bottle.

‘Did you just say you were at school here, miss?’ he asked, with pencil poised. ‘Was this at Lady Laura on the cliffs?’

She smiled. ‘Yes. It was. But I think we’re leaving now, I’m sorry.’

His eyes lit up. ‘Here, Bob,’ he said. ‘This young lady only went to Lady L.’

The photographer pulled a face. He didn’t care.

But the reporter wanted to pursue it. ‘When was that exactly, miss?’

‘Well …’ She hesitated, and turned to Henderson. They both knew she wasn’t supposed to talk about herself.

He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid the Milk Girl can’t answer personal questions.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Pandora. ‘I spoke out of turn. I just wanted to say I liked Brighton, that’s all.’

The Mayor glowered at the reporter. He hated the press, and with good reason (he had a lot to hide). ‘All right, sonny. You’ve got your answer.’

‘I only asked what year she was here, Mr Mayor. I was thinking, she might have known the schoolgirl who fell off the cliff!’

Pandora turned pale. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What schoolgirl?’

‘Oh, yes!’ said the photographer, suddenly seeing what his mate was driving at. ‘Good point, Jimmy.’

It was as if everything had gone dark. Pandora grasped Hendy’s arm; she felt she was falling.

‘What schoolgirl?’ she said, again.

‘Oh, you don’t want to know about that, miss,’ the Mayor assured her. ‘That’s a very tragic story.’

‘And I’m afraid we must be going,’ said Henderson.

‘Diana something,’ said the reporter. ‘She was only about twelve. Messy-looking, the other girls said. Always in trouble, apparently. Diana Carmichael, was it?’

‘Think so,’ said his friend, who was leaning in to take pictures of Pandora’s stricken face.

‘Did you know her, then?’ the reporter continued. ‘Think she might have jumped? Here, Bob, quick! Take the picture! Look at her eyes glazing over! Milk Girl passes out! That’s a front page if ever I saw one!’

‘Diana,’ said Pandora, staggering.

‘Miss Holden, please,’ implored Henderson quietly, leaning close and holding her elbow.

‘Some help here!’ called the Mayor, at a loss. At which a constable on duty outside the station was summoned to assist, but managed only to add to the mayhem.

‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded. ‘And whose is this flaming cow?’

‘Please, Miss Holden … Pandora … let’s get you outside. Can you walk?’

‘And what about these people getting murdered with milk bottles last night, miss?’ said the reporter, excited at the effect his questions were having – and belatedly making the obvious connection to a major news event. ‘Care to comment on that?’

‘What?’ She looked in bewilderment at Henderson.

‘I’ll explain later, Pandora. I only just heard myself.’

‘Ooh, I sincerely hope you’ve got a permit for this animal, sir.’

‘Please, Constable, help the young lady! Who cares about the ruddy permit?’

‘I do, sir. The laws governing the permissible movement of livestock in a built-up area are very clear.’

‘I’m sorry, Hendy.’ Pandora was inexorably sinking to the ground. Henderson lost his grip on her elbow.

‘She’s going!’ yelled the reporter.

‘Brilliant!’ said Bob, still taking pictures.

‘Get it?’

‘Getting it now, mate.’

‘Pandora, mind the cow!’ shouted Henderson, in despair. And, fittingly enough, those were the last words the Milk Girl heard before she completely lost consciousness.

There is one last thing we need to know about Pandora Holden before returning to police matters. When she was fifteen, a keen young man with an academic interest in the kinship systems of the Fens had come to lodge with her parents. Just out of school, he wasn’t yet precisely clear about his future, but social anthropology interested him greatly, and his father was acquainted with the Holdens through high-table circles in Cambridge. This young man sat at the feet of Pandora’s parents, asking them gratifyingly intelligent questions, and helping them sort their findings as they prepared to write a major study. This young man, for whom Pandora conceived passionate schoolgirl feelings, was, of course, Peregrine Wilberforce Twitten.

He had stayed just three months, arriving on 23 April – a day whose recurrence each year still made Pandora’s heart leap within her. It was a momentous meeting. She had opened the front door on a rainy afternoon to find this tall, lean, keen-faced young man drenched with soft spring precipitation, a damp suitcase on the ground beside him. Tucked under one arm was an attractive small ginger terrier, who caught her eye immediately and wagged its tail. We would recognise this young man instantly as Constable Twitten except that he was a bit younger, and had floppy hair, and was wearing everyday civilian clothes. He had been about to knock on the Holdens’ door, and had been caught, surprised, with his knuckles raised, which made both him and Pandora laugh.

‘Gosh. Hello,’ he said, smiling. What an open manner he had! ‘Are you Miss Pandora Holden? Oh, good, it’s the right house.’

She had nodded, but not said anything. She couldn’t take her eyes off the dog.

‘Ooh, look, gosh, I’m sorry about him, but I think he’s injured his paw. He was heading this way from the main road, and he appeared to be in difficulties, so after he’d limped along beside me for a while, I just decided to pick him up and bally well carry him.’

The dog, clearly enjoying himself, wagged his tail again.

‘May I put him down now?’

Pandora wasn’t sure. ‘Well, you may if you like.’

‘Thank you.’

It was a relief to him to put the dog down. It was small, but stocky. ‘What’s his name?’ he asked.

‘Oh, he’s not ours,’ said Pandora, not knowing whether to laugh.

Twitten groaned. ‘Really? Oh, no.’

‘Sorry.’

‘But I’ve just carried him bally miles!’

They both looked down at the dog, who promptly ran indoors and scampered up the stairs.

Just then, Pandora’s mother opened the door to the study, and took in the puzzling scene: a drenched young man on the doorstep; April rain gusting in; paws thundering up the stairs in a blur of wet intruder fur.

‘Why on earth did you bring a dog with you, Mr Twitten?’ she demanded. ‘And where’s it going?’

‘He didn’t really, Mother,’ said Pandora.

‘James!’ Pandora’s mother called. ‘Did we know the boy was bringing his dog?’

In the end, the dog (a two-year-old drop-eared Norwich Terrier named Blakeney) spent a happy afternoon snoozing beside the range in the Holdens’ cosy kitchen, waiting to be picked up by the station-master, who was his devoted, long-suffering owner. Evidently Blakeney was always tricking people into taking him home with them, a custom the station-master found entertaining but also hurtful. Twitten soon recovered from the embarrassment of his mistake, and everyone agreed that the dog possessed an unusual capacity for bending soft-hearted people to his will.

Meanwhile the fifteen-year-old Pandora had no sooner seen the hapless Peregrine Twitten on the step, with his damp hat and raincoat, and the cheerful little dog under his arm, than she had fallen deeply and forever in love.

For his own part, the eighteen-year-old Twitten had relished his time in Norfolk – but not for any corresponding romantic attachment made. The reason he later remembered Norfolk with such affection was that his sojourn with proper anthropologists cleared up, for ever, the issue of his vocation. He discovered he was simply too clever, and too impatient, for academic research. He certainly liked organising data and extrapolating from it (‘Sir, I think I can see a pattern!’), but when it came to collating it from transcribed interviews with the entire native population of Rarotonga – well, what a waste of time.

Twitten was at a turning point in his life: too old now for schoolboy I-Spy books, but still avidly curious to observe, to spot, to draw quick deductions. He wanted to solve crimes. When he tried to explain this impulse to his grown-up hosts over convivial suppers, they would first heartily blame the works of Arthur Conan Doyle (which, it was true, Twitten had consumed at an impressionable age), and then gently remind him that he’d failed to spot the truth in the case of the malingering canine (it transpired that the dog’s pathetic limp had been an act).

But he was not deterred by such well-meant teasing. His vocation was growing within him. When one day the Holdens heard about a robbery at a nearby seaside hotel, he borrowed a bicycle and rode there against a powerful wind. The local sergeant was at first annoyed by Twitten’s unsought contributions (‘Excuse me, sir, but did you notice this bally huge footprint?’), but in the end was obliged to thank him for his help. The culprit was a well-known local criminal; in fact, he was the first person everyone had thought of. He had boasted about the crime both before and after committing it, and had also left an abundance of clues. But still, with Twitten on hand, the case had been wound up in a quarter of the usual time, and the stolen goods recovered in toto.

‘So you want to be a policeman?’ Pandora had asked Twitten one day, as they walked down a dusty cart-track together in the light early evening. It was Twitten’s last week in Norfolk, in late June. He was going to miss this wonderful county. He had volunteered to accompany young Pandora to the station after school, to collect a parcel of books and papers for her parents, and also to shake Blakeney’s paw if he happened not to be out on an opportunistic jaunt.

‘I think so, yes. I want to be a police detective. I’ve decided there’s nothing I’d rather do.’

‘Won’t your father be disappointed if you don’t get a degree?’

‘Well, the way I see it, I’d just be taking his work a step further. Father wrote Inside the Head of the Law Breaker, and so on. I’d be applying the criminal psychology he writes about; putting it to real use. It does make sense, in a way. Rather than do an academic course, I could spend my time reading the sort of books that will help with the job. And then I can bally well do it.’

‘Yes, but you’d be a policeman.’

‘That’s true.’

Twitten couldn’t see the problem with being a policeman, if it meant he could work out who’d committed crimes. Perhaps Pandora was too young to understand what a valuable job a policeman did.

‘What would you like to be when you grow up, Pandora?’ He felt it was polite to ask the question.

She blushed. ‘Well, an artist, eventually.’

‘Really?’ He let this sink in. ‘Gosh. Well. Good for you.’

‘There’s no need to say it like that. I’m very good at art.’

‘Sorry, I meant—’ Twitten stopped talking. He was a little out of his depth. And perhaps he’d misunderstood. ‘I mean, do you want to be an artist every day? Not as a hobby, but as a sort of profession?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, gosh. Do your parents know?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice had hardened slightly.

‘And they don’t mind?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s … No, gosh. No, really. Good for you.’

‘Why are you so surprised?’

‘I’m not. Not at all.’

‘Then why do you keep saying “gosh”?’

Twitten bit his lip. He had started this conversation innocently, and now young Pandora seemed quite distressed. He saw a safe way forward.

‘Will you go to art school, then?’

‘No, not straight away.’

‘Oh.’

‘No, I’ll do Classics first. At Oxford.’

‘Classics?’

‘Yes!’

Pandora stopped walking and looked at her companion. She had never felt such burning disappointment. In bed every night for the past three months, she had lain awake concocting a wonderful shared future of glittering prizes for herself and Peregrine Wilberforce Twitten – or ‘P.W.’ as she sometimes imagined calling him once they were on a more intimate footing. She would follow him to Oxford, then they’d get engaged. Eventually they would have a little dog of their own, just like Blakeney.

But Twitten seemed to have other ideas. For a start, he wasn’t even interested in academia. Moreover, while he had decided on a highly idiosyncratic career path for himself, he’d clearly never thought for a single second about what the future might hold for her; never registered her precocious twin passions for classical literature and Expressionist art.

Tears welled in her eyes. Twitten, feeling that some sort of comforting gesture was called for, took her arm and said, ‘I’ll come and visit you at Oxford, if you like.’

At this, Pandora broke down. ‘Will you?’ she wailed.

Twitten had no idea what was going on. ‘Of course I will, Pandora,’ he said, encouragingly. ‘I mean, assuming your bally boyfriend doesn’t mind.’

Her face dissolved in misery. ‘My bally boyfriend? Oh, Peregrine!’ she howled.

They had walked on to the station, and collected the parcel, but not seen the dog – it later transpired he’d managed to wangle a ride to King’s Lynn in a baker’s van. It was the last time Twitten and Pandora were alone together.

But now, four years later, Twitten was investigating milk-bottle murders in Brighton, and Pandora was fainting nearby on the station concourse, and frightening a cow. Fate – and more importantly, milk – was bringing them together again.