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The fog had remained dense throughout the afternoon, when suddenly, at five, like a vast blind rolled back to the sea, it cleared. So the line of observers lying against the shingle bank, their telescopes unused on their knees, could see Adam running along the straight flat track from the main road. His running was thrown out of balance by the optical equipment he was carrying, and he ran like an excited schoolgirl, legs flying. They sensed his urgency and slid down the shingle and ran too, towards the Windmill. The few people still walking slowly and hopefully through the marsh saw the line of black figures on the bank disappear and they also began to run. When Adam pushed into the hut with so much energy and excitement that it seemed that the room could hardly contain him, there was a crowd behind him jostling him further in. Adam tried to speak, but he was out of breath and the background music was so loud that no one could make out what he said. Ella knew what was expected and turned off the radio. Then there was silence. They all heard when, still fighting for breath and with a slight stutter, he said:

'Bimaculated lark. On the lawn behind the hotel. I'm sure it is.'

With tolerance and affection Ella watched the snack bar empty and, on her knees to sweep up a cup and plate broken in the confusion, said to her assistant:

'You'd best get some more bread out of the freezer, Sandra. We'll be busy tomorrow.'

Then: 'He's such a gentleman, Mr Palmer-Jones. He was a civil servant before he retired. Do you know, he used to work for a minister? He told me once. Fancy young Adam finding a bird like that.'

All the birdwatchers went inland, to trespass on the parkland surrounding the hotel, and there was no one to disturb the peace of the marsh, where a little boy was playing with his boat in the sun.

Mr and Mrs Palmer-Jones lived in a pretty and tidy village in Surrey. Their house was neither pretty nor tidy. It was a red-brick Victorian vicarage with flaking paint and a garden of tangled undergrowth, with a pond full of newts and toads. A battered old swing had been left to rust on the lawn for the benefit of grandchildren, and the latch on the front gate was always sticking. Mrs Palmer-Jones shocked the village by standing unsuccessfully each year as a candidate for the Labour Party in local authority elections and going on CND marches. Over the years these idiosyncrasies were forgiven, but she refused to join the WI, and that never was. Until she had retired at the age of sixty she had worked as a senior social worker in Guildford. This had been viewed as a respectable occupation for an elderly lady, like working for the WRVS, until Molly Palmer-Jones had made the mistake of describing some of the details of her work. Then it became common knowledge in the village that she worked 'not with the needy or old ladies or orphans, but, my dear, with youths, criminals and drug addicts.'

Mr Palmer-Jones was a naturalist of the old-fashioned type, who knew about plants and butterflies as well as birds. His weekly article on natural history in the local paper made him something of a celebrity in the village. He was a founder member of the Surrey Conservation Trust. But even he began to behave a little oddly as he grew older. He went to India in a Land Rover. When he retired he sold his Volvo and bought a Morris Minor van, in which he and Molly travelled all over the country looking for and watching rare birds. Strange people were seen to visit the house, people who were dropped in the village by lorry drivers after hitchhiking from the motorway, young people, carrying nothing but a sleeping bag and a battered telescope. Yet unlike his wife he maintained decent standards of dress and speech. There was sustained criticism by a member of the Conservation Trust with journalistic ambitions of his newspaper articles, which now reflected his trips to see rare birds, but he continued to be respected. He had an air of authority, of sadness, which encouraged people to keep their distance. They were, perhaps, a little frightened of him, despite his polite friendliness.

Clive Anderson was also something of a local personality, in a conventional, squire-like way. He was a magistrate. He could be seen in church and at county functions. He had travelled into London on the same train as George Palmer-Jones before George retired, so the men were acquaintances. Molly Palmer-Jones had fought with him and pleaded with him in the juvenile court where he had often sat as chairman. The families had been neighbours for many years but there had been no contact between them; they had nothing in common.

It was with some embarrassment that Molly opened the door to him, just as it was growing dark on the Thursday after their return from Rushy. Anderson was a small, slight man, whom Molly had sarcastically described after a particularly hard-fought battle in court as 'a typical psychopath, totally devoid of affection or emotion.' His diffidence, his obvious discomfort now were so unusual that Molly forgot her hostility and automatically, professionally, tried to make him feel more at ease. He moved into the house with the contained energy of an athlete, and she realized that although he was in his mid-sixties he was very fit. She remembered that he had been a member of one of the Everest expeditions. He did not look at her, but moved impatiently, restlessly, as she spoke to him. Not recognizing that they had had any previous contact, he interrupted her and asked abruptly to speak to her husband. With uncharacteristic tact she left them alone in the big, cluttered kitchen where George was reading the final proof of the Surrey Bird Report. With distaste, Anderson refused a glass of homemade beer, but he accepted a Scotch.