Foghorn

Gull’s Reach fishing harbour · dawn · thick fog · Difficulty: Inspector 7 · 12×12

Dawn at the fishing harbour of Gull’s Reach, in thick fog. When the foghorn sounds, the night watchman Valentine is found dead in a moored boat in the outer basin. Twelve people were in the harbour: fishers, harbour staff and early visitors – and in the fog each of them could see only two squares far. Read the statements, find everyone’s square on the plan and unmask the murderer: the killer was alone with Valentine in the outer basin, on another boat, and nobody but Valentine saw them.

Rules

1. Fog: everyone could see exactly two squares in every direction – the 5×5 block around their own square; area borders do not block the view. “I saw two people” counts the others standing inside that block (people in the same row or column never stand inside it, of course).
2. Nobody saw the murderer: apart from the victim, no one was within two squares of the murderer.
3. Every row and every column holds exactly one person. As soon as you place someone, cross out their whole row and column.
4. “Beside” = directly left, right, above or below, and in the same area. The harbour is open air: the dashed lines are the borders of the areas of the puzzle. Water squares and squares with an object (rocks, bollards, crates, stalls…) cannot be occupied; the moored boats and the benches can.
5. Directions refer to rows and columns, not to the same line: “he was north of her” = in a row further up, in any column; “east of him” = in a column further right, in any row.
6. The murderer was alone with the victim: nobody else was in that area.

Statements

• Alfred (trawlerman): He was in the Inner Basin. He saw exactly one person – a fisher.
• Brenda (skipper): She was in the Fish Market.
• Cyril (deckhand): Exactly two rows north of him was a man.
• Dorothy (oyster fisher): She saw Alfred.
• Edgar (customs officer): He was in the Harbour Office Yard.
• Fern (harbour master): She was beside a bollard.
• Gareth (crane operator): He was beside a bollard. He saw nobody.
• Hilda (fishmonger): She was in a corner of her area. She saw exactly one person – a fisher.
• Ike (angler): He was alone in his area.
• Jenny (jogger): She was on the Lighthouse Rock. She saw nobody.
• Kurt (birdwatcher): He was in the top row, alone in his area.
• Valentine (night watchman): The victim. He was found in a moored boat – alone with the murderer.

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