Harbour Cottage is the setting for Kate Miskin and Benton’s questioning of Jago Tamlyn about the deaths of three German soldiers at the lighthouse during the war. Its quiet, familiar interior contrasts with Jago’s launch and gives the investigation a more neutral meeting place; there, the inquiry draws a line between an old, unproved killing and Jago’s admitted motive for killing Nathan Oliver.

Setting and Physical Character

The cottage stands by the quay, and Kate and Benton follow Jago there from the harbour after asking to speak privately. Jago considers the launch private enough, since people leave him alone when he is aboard it, but Kate prefers the cottage: although it belongs to him too, she regards it as more neutral ground than the boat.

The door is open when they arrive. Sunlight falls across the stone floor; inside are a bare, scrubbed table, two Windsor chairs, an open fireplace, and a corkboard almost covered by a large-scale map of the island. A tide timetable, a bird-life poster, and notes held by drawing pins fill out the board. Beside it hangs an enlarged sepia photograph in a wooden frame: a bearded man whose resemblance to Jago is unmistakable. Kate wonders whether he is Jago’s father or grandfather and judges the latter more likely from the photograph’s age and the man’s unrelaxed pose.

Kate has not entered the cottage on her previous visit, yet its atmosphere seems mysteriously familiar to her. The room’s practical objects—map, tide timetable, and pinned notes—give it the character of a working island home, while the old photograph makes family history present in the same space where the investigation turns to the past.

The Cottage as an Interview Site

Jago gestures toward the chairs, and the three sit down. Benton, after glancing at Kate, does not take out his notebook. Kate begins by asking about what happened at the lighthouse in the early months of the war: three German soldiers died there, and their bodies and boat were put out to sea. The account identifies Saul Oliver, Nathan Oliver’s father, as the person responsible and places the four-year-old Nathan on the island at the time.

Jago suspects Kate has spoken with Emily Holcombe; she tells him that Dr. Speidel has also uncovered much of the story. When she asks how long he has known the facts, Jago insists that they are true even though nothing could be proved at the time. His grandfather had a smashed skull, but there were no witnesses. Police tried to question Nathan as a boy, but he had nothing to tell—or, Jago allows, may have been in shock. Jago says the story was known in Pentworthy and remained known to the few, including Emily, who were still living.

Historical Disclosure and the Present Case

At the cottage, Jago openly acknowledges that he had a motive to kill Nathan Oliver and had carried it since learning the story at about eleven years old. He estimates that he had nearly twenty-three years in which to avenge his grandfather. But he rejects the hanging as a method he would have chosen: he says he had often been alone with Nathan on the launch and would have sent him overboard as his grandfather had gone overboard. He also argues that he would not have chosen a time when the island was nearly empty.

Kate then returns to the night of Nathan’s death, which she says must have occurred shortly after eight, when Jago claims to have been testing the launch. Asked which direction he went, Jago says he went about half a mile out to sea, far enough to test the engine. The cottage thus serves not merely as a place to recount the wartime story but as the setting where Jago’s family grievance, his stated preference for another method, and his account of his movements are brought together for scrutiny.