Now she blushed. She knew she ought not to have mentioned it. ‘Well, there is some silly row between Simon and his father. Keith was keen to come down here, but he knew that his grandfather would disapprove, so Simon suggested he tell the old boy that he was staying with college friends. But please, that’s confidential. I shouldn’t have told it to anyone.’

  George nodded seriously. ‘He was a foolish young man.’

  ‘Yes he was. But most young men are foolish.’

  ‘It’s their privilege . . . we daren’t be foolish after thirty.’

  ‘Make it thirty-two, George. I’m still a foolish woman myself.’

  She looked about as he had done and found that the posts were the only furniture, so she squatted on the one next to his with as much dignity as she could muster. She might well have asked him up to the superior comfort of the summerhouse, but she felt a certain reluctance to introducing him there. And he appeared quite comfortable on a post.

  ‘Who is this Dawn le Fay person I hear about?’

  ‘Née Molly Jimpson.’ Stella contrived to pull a face. ‘She’s an actress who had a part in Simon’s musical. An overloaded blonde. You’d probably find her a drag.’

  ‘Is there anyone else staying there I should have heard of?’

  ‘There’s Woody. Woody Woodmancott. He writes the music.’

  ‘Who is Glynda?’

  She shot him a look. ‘You have heard about Glynda?’

  ‘Mmn.’ He inclined his head. ‘They have a good grapevine in Alderford.’

  ‘Well . . . she’s Simon’s girlfriend. A rep actress who’s resting. I think she’s likely to get the push – Simon finds engagements for his ex’s.’

  ‘It sounds an interesting household.’

  ‘It isn’t really. It’s dull. Then there’s a set-designer, Jeff Simpson, and Jill, Simon’s secretary. That’s all.’

  ‘And Keith didn’t take much to this assembly.’

  ‘He didn’t take to it at all.’

  ‘And what were their reactions to him?’

  ‘I don’t think they much noticed him. Dawn did, of course, but she was poison to poor Keith. She was a bit put out when he favoured me. I think she regarded him as her private property.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Once more Stella’s tongue had strayed a little, and she found it exceedingly difficult to retrieve a false step. She gave a hesitant shrug, her eyes straying away from George. But then she thought: to hell with Simon. What loyalty did she owe him and his crowd?

  ‘This is gossip, you understand. I wouldn’t want it to go further.’

  George nodded in his solemn and confidential manner. She told him briefly of Glynda’s jealousy and the petty intrigues it gave rise to, of Simon’s machiavellian shifts to preserve a quiet life. She found the subject oddly distasteful: it sounded particularly trivial and ugly. George listened without expression, puffing regularly on his pipe.

  ‘So you practically had the young man forced on you?’

  She stirred uncomfortably. ‘I suppose I did. But Simon wasn’t quite so cynical, he thought it would give me an interest. I was feeling very upset when I came down here.’

  ‘Mmn. On the rebound.’

  ‘That’s not very kind, George.’

  ‘It was true though, wasn’t it? And he could scarcely not have known.’

  ‘I think you’re being unfair to Simon.’

  George smoked away silently. He seemed to retreat into his meditations, his eyes becoming remote from Stella. He had injected a note of brusqueness into his last few remarks, and she was not at all certain that she didn’t feel hurt by it.

  ‘The cottage. What did you know about that when you hired it?’

  Stella was startled by the abruptness and harsh tone of the enquiry.

  ‘Simon gave me a description of it.’

  ‘Did he tell you it was a love-nest?’

  ‘Well, really!’ She sat up straighter. ‘And what do you know about it, anyway?’

  ‘It’s common knowledge. He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No. When I found out I was angry with him.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I—’ Stella checked herself quickly. ‘That’s my business, George. And I don’t like being interrogated.’

  Still there was no expression on his placid, square jawed face, nor any variation in the slow rhythm of his puffs. She felt her resentment begin to gather. She had been too hasty in trusting this man! He was pumping her, that was it, and she had only just begun to cotton on.

  ‘Perhaps I should tell you, then, what they’re saying in the village.’

  ‘No.’ She rose. ‘I don’t want to hear it, George.’

  ‘Sit down. I think you should hear it.’

  ‘I won’t listen to village gossip!’

  ‘I’d like to know if there is any truth in what passes for gospel down there.’

  ‘Very well then.’ She breathed deeply and resumed her squat on the post. ‘But I’m telling you, George, this is none of your business. I thought you came here to be kind and to sympathize with me, but I don’t much care for the way you’re going about it.’

  He ignored her little outburst. ‘It amounts to this, Stella. There’s a certain party, a bit unpopular, who used to be welcomed at the cottage, and who at one time or another has been in the pay of Mr Simon. Now I hear that this party tried to re-establish himself, but that he met with a rebuff. Would that be true, or wouldn’t it?’

  She was flaming. ‘Yes, it’s true. Now I hope you’re satisfied!’

  He heaved his large shoulders. Just puzzled,’ he said.

  ‘And who asked you to be puzzled?’

  ‘Listen.’ He raised his hand suddenly. ‘I wonder if you recognize something we can hear?’

  She stared at him angrily, half expecting a trick, then turned her attention perfunctorily to the evening sounds of the Broad. She heard the usual chitter of the reed birds, the croon of a pigeon in the carrs, and the reel of a grasshopper-warbler coming from reeds close to the mooring.

  ‘What am I supposed to be listening for?’

  ‘Do you know the sound of a diesel engine?’

  She heard it then. It was the persistent throbbing note of Simon’s launch.

  ‘And what about it?’

  ‘It’s distinctive, isn’t it?’

  ‘Suppose it is. What then?’

  ‘Just that I heard it last night. At around one o’clock-time.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  FOR SOME MOMENTS she felt unable to stir or utter a word. She sat rigidly on the post, her breathing limited to checked gasps. The implication of what he said opened a vein of sapping fear, jerking to life as it did the faint suspicion she had toyed with earlier. Simon: Simon had been there. And at the critical time, near enough. At the most, within half-an-hour of when Keith had set out. And he had said nothing about it, he had told her he’d gone to bed – a lie, a palpable lie! For he had been out on the Broad. The fear of it swept through her like a deadly contagion and she snatched at the first hint of doubt she could muster.

  ‘But . . . how can you be certain?’

  George slowly shook his head at her. ‘I can’t be. Not if you mean about whose engine I heard. I can only say I heard an engine that sounded identical with one I know, and that’s poorish sort of evidence to give in a court of law.’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt a rush of relief. ‘Yes, it might not have been Simon.’

  ‘It might not. There must be other boats with engines like that. And then, we don’t know at what time the accident happened. We would have to know it fairly closely to jump to a conclusion . . . wouldn’t we?’

  He knew. She snatched out her cigarettes in a desperate attempt to cover her confusion. She had made him a present of the vital fact that she was aware of the time, and when it was. She didn’t know if he had deliberately set a trap to catch her, but she had given herself away – and George was not the man to miss it. She fumbled a fag into her mouth, and lit it.

  ‘You . . . you’d better tell the police.’

  ‘I’m not so sure of that yet.’ He took the lighted match from her and applied it to his pipe.

  ‘It’s important. They had better know.’

  ‘I wonder if it is important?’

  ‘It is. And you know it. So you’d better go and tell them.’

  ‘Mmn.’ He let the match drop to fizz in the water. ‘I don’t like being precipitate when it comes to police matters. You shove something under their noses and it can make a lot of trouble . . . for them, as well as other people. And there may be nothing in it.’

  She shivered. She watched the cigarette in her hand trembling helplessly. It was possible: she might be agitating herself over nothing. It might have been some other boat, Simon could simply have been spying, he might well have returned to Sunbird before Keith came on the scene. Swimming slowly, as he would have done, Keith might have arrived at the spot considerably later.

  ‘Tell me about . . . what you heard.’

  ‘Yes.’ George shaped a ring. ‘Well, I packed in fishing at eleven, then I made some coffee and lay reading on my bunk. It was pretty quiet outside. I could hear a fish or two rising, and something’ – he paused – ‘which could have been an otter. Then, towards one, I scraped out my pipe and turned out the light, and lay a few minutes thinking about one thing or another. And it was just a little later that I heard the engine. But it meant nothing to me, and I simply went off to sleep.’

  ‘So you could have dreamed it, about the engine.’

  ‘No, Stella, I’m afraid I couldn’t. I heard it plainly enough – over there, in the channel.’

  ‘And it was about one . . . you’re sure of the time?’

  He held her eyes. ‘It’s important, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Well . . . it would be only a few minutes afterwards.’

  She drew heavily on her cigarette, trying to reassure herself with this. Simon was a liar, but it didn’t follow that he was a murderer as well. He wasn’t the type, she told herself, imagining his falsely-frank eyes; he liked finesse, he was an intriguer, violence didn’t form part of his character. It was much more likely that he came out to spy than with the intention of running Keith down. He had scarcely hidden his curiosity to find out what her relations were with Keith.

  ‘You think I would be wise to keep quiet for a bit?’

  George had risen; he was stretching himself and tapping out his pipe.

  ‘It’s . . . well, it’s up to you.’ Stella refused to give him the satisfaction of being asked for his silence.

  ‘Mmn. In that case I won’t be in a hurry . . . I’ll just wait, and watch events.’ He came closer. ‘And I really am sorry. You’ve been taking it on the chin lately. Let me prescribe an early night for you. And some hot whisky, and three aspirins.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor. That’s a good idea.’

  ‘And stop wallowing in the blame. It’s a commonplace reaction and it won’t alter a thing.’

  It was superfluous enough, that parting admonition. Stella had been shaken out of any tendency to continue her wallowing. Something else had replaced it, an emotion much more powerful and exclusive, and though she could meet it with self-assurances it was a long way from being stilled. She walked briskly back to the cottage, where she followed George’s prescription to the letter. She wasn’t very fond of whisky so she added several spoonfuls of sugar to it. Then she took care to check the bolts, a precaution she sometimes forgot, and made a round of the windows before retiring to her room. It was a jolt, a terrible jolt: she wouldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t forget it. Though she drank the whisky in greedy mouthfuls it seemed to be neutralized by the fear in her stomach.

  For didn’t Simon have sufficient motive, when you began to review the circumstances? George obviously had suspected it and had come probing her for information. For that was what he had done, she had no illusions about that; using his casual, practitioner’s technique he had got her to sketch in the outline for him. And the outline threw it up plainly: Keith had stood in Simon’s way. Keith was the old man’s favourite, Simon the black sheep of the family. And there would be a lot of money in it, all the wealth of Lea-Stephens Engineering. Stella didn’t know how much that was but she did know that the firm was one of the large ones. It was a motive as cogent as any could be – in spite of Simon himself being passing rich.

  She shuddered, she sucked the last of the whisky from the glass. It was supposition only! There was no shadow of proof to underwrite it. And for all she knew Simon’s inheritance was established and certain, and the rows he had with his father as insignificant as summer showers. No, if one began looking at motives any accident could be suspect, there was positively no limit to what the imagination might invent; and when you came to it, George had heard but he hadn’t seen the launch: five other people besides Simon had been on Sunbird the previous night.

  Immediately she found herself extending her volatile suspicions. Woody! His was the name that jumped at once into her mind. Woody, with his anonymous warning, his cryptic remark, his use of the launch – she didn’t try to guess at his motive: for an accusing moment her conviction ignored it. And Woody, he was the type, the subhuman, expressionless egotist, hiding his thoughts and feelings behind an affectation of indolence. She was convinced! But then her certainty ebbed away again. Of what was she convinced, except the fear that blinded her reason? Why not suppose Dawn a murderer, or Glynda, or Jeff Simpson – Jill, the perfect secretary, or Ruby, the perfect maid? They had all had an opportunity equal to Woody’s, and were similarly unprovided with an adequate motive . . .

  It was useless. There was no point in casting suspicion about in that way. She cursed George, who had plunged her into this ugly state of panic. A single, perhaps irrelevant fact, and the world assumed a nightmare quality, with monsters substituting themselves for fellow men and women. It was too much to credit, she would sooner discount the fact. Though George had been so cocksure he might easily have dreamed the sound of the engine. She toyed angrily with the idea that it had been a lie in the first place, but she was obliged to drop this notion when she remembered the time he had given. That was close, too close. He would have to have been a very lucky liar.

  Finally his prescription did its work and she fell into a tossing, dreaming slumber. She started awake several times to find sweat on her forehead. In her dream, which was repetitive, she was sailing Lutestring with Keith; he kept asking reproachfully for the helm but every time she snubbed him to silence.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  SHE WOKE WITH the comforting feeling that her fears too were dreamlike, and as easily to be banished by the bright morning sun. They did seem a little exaggerated as she reviewed them while dressing: the product of a mind unsettled by grief, not to be taken too seriously. She made a sagacious resolution: she would leave matters like that to the proper authorities. If there was anything suspect about Keith’s accident it would undoubtedly come to their attention. They were better placed than herself to make an unprejudiced appraisal, and what was more they could test their suspicions instead of weighing one against the other. The latter was Stella’s only method. She was glad to recognize its limitations.

  Unfortunately she was not permitted to enjoy her tranquillity for long. The phone rang.

  ‘Stella? My dear, you’re wanted at the house.’

  ‘Wanted? What for, Simon?’

  ‘Oh, some damn silly questioning. They’re making quite an issue of it. We have an inspector here now.’

  ‘An inspector!’

  ‘And a sergeant. And a female who scraps it all down. If you can be ready I’ll pick you up in half an hour.’

  ‘I . . . yes, all right, Simon.’

  ‘That’s time enough, is it?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ll be ready.’

  ‘Stiff uppers, my dear.’

  An inspector . . . ! She took a step towards the door, then came to a stand. So there was something in it – the authorities weren’t satisfied. Her panic fear came sweeping back, sapping her body with nausea. It had been murder: she was sure of that. Simon . . . somebody had murdered Keith. And she had been used . . . her attraction for Keith . . . she had been the bait in the trap set for him. How could she face Simon . . . anyone there? The police, the questions . . . ?

  For some terrible minutes she wanted to run from the situation, and had a car been at her disposal she would most likely have fled. It was only by slow degrees that her mind began to clear again and the compulsion slackened in her pounding brain. She forced herself to go to the cabinet and pour a tot of brandy. Then, with as much assurance as she could muster, she lit a cigarette. Of course, she might be wrong; it needn’t be as bad as she was imagining. She knew little or nothing of police procedure, this might all be a matter of course.

  Simon’s Jaguar arrived punctually. He came sweeping into the cottage. On his shapely features was a bad-tempered scowl.

  ‘Damn them, I’m going to complain to someone. It’s a blasted inquisition. From the way they carry on you would think I was harbouring a bunch of criminals.’

  ‘What do they want to know, Simon?’

  ‘Everything. When we last used the john. They’ve got a hang-up about Keith – they’re sweating on promotion, it wouldn’t surprise me.’

  ‘But there must be something . . . special?’

  ‘Oh, there is. At least, they pretend so. They’ve got a report from their futile pathologist. He thinks that Keith was bonked on the head.’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  ‘Bonked. It’s the only word for it. Not hit by a boat, that’s far too simple. And so we all have to go through the wringer to see if their highnesses can spot a bonker.’

  He went to Stella’s cabinet and poured himself a drink, apparently unconscious of the effect of his words on her. On second thoughts he poured another and carried it to Stella. Her white face and shaking hand seemed for an instant to surprise him. Then his scowl faded slightly.

  ‘Oh blast, Stella, I’m sorry . . . I’m upset myself, I don’t know what I’m doing.’