‘It’s – it’s horrible, Simon.’

  ‘I know. And I don’t believe it for a moment.’

  ‘But if they say . . .’

  He laughed angrily. ‘How can they be sure, about a thing like that? The answer is they can’t.’

  ‘But they must . . . there must be something.’

  ‘Oh certainly. There’s promotion. So they’re just trying it on.’

  He threw back his drink and immediately went to pour himself another: he drank this one also in a couple of quick jerks. In the height of her agitation Stella was obliged to notice Simon’s own. It was so unlike him. The mere perception of it added a cruel weight to her terrors. When she spoke her voice sounded thin, as though it had risen by an octave.

  ‘Simon . . . I don’t think I can see them just now.’

  ‘What? Oh, my dear!’ He came to drop on a chair beside her. ‘But it’s all right for you, you know, that’s one blessing about it. We agreed to keep our mouths shut, and keep ’em shut we did.’

  ‘But I shall have to tell them.’

  ‘Tell them? Not you.’

  ‘I will, Simon . . . it’s different now. It isn’t an accident any longer.’

  ‘It was an accident, take my word for it. They are only trying the other for size. I saw the poor kid myself and they haven’t a damned thing to go on. And if it wasn’t an accident, my dear, you’d be the bigger idiot to get mixed up with it. Especially now, when we are all keeping quiet about you in our statements.’

  ‘But it could be important.’

  Simon shook his head vigorously. ‘No more now than before, rest easy about that. The big question is still not why Keith went swimming, but who met him there, if they did, and what their object was in bonking him. And they fancy us for the job, I fear, individually or in concert. Which is only too plain from their way of going about it. Let me get you another drink.’

  She accepted it unresistingly. She felt an increasing inability to oppose his will with hers. At first to make a clean breast had seemed the only path open to her, but she had little stomach to persist in it against the flow of his reasoning. Beside his strength she felt weak; she was ready enough to be persuaded.

  ‘You see,’ he seated himself again, ‘it would look particularly odd now, giving them a piece of information which the rest of us have suppressed. It isn’t important in itself but because it was suppressed they would think it was, and they would go over it with a microscope trying to make something of it. Then you can imagine what it would be like – hours and hours of blasted questioning. And all to no purpose as far as anything useful goes.’

  ‘But if there was just a chance . . .’

  ‘Then I would be all for it, Stella. I would be raising Cain, I can tell you, if I thought Keith had really been bonked. Damn it all, he was my nephew, and I was rather fond of the silly ass. It has been a hellish bit of business. I’m not a bloody lump of rock.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, Simon.’

  ‘I’ve got the dirty end of the stick. When they have kindly done with the body . . . and my father. It will hit him hard.’

  She hesitated, then said: ‘Doesn’t he know about it yet?’

  Simon shook his head. ‘He may do. I sent off a cable yesterday.’

  ‘A cable?’

  ‘At this time of the year he’s down at Juan les Pins. But he goes cruising with his pals and it isn’t easy to contact him.’

  ‘I see.’ She bit her tongue to stop herself adding: ‘How convenient.’ She felt a compulsive urge to blurt out what George had told her about hearing the engine. Wouldn’t it settle, once and for all, her paralysing suspicions concerning Simon – provoke, then and there, the moment of truth in his grey eyes? But she shuddered away from such a disclosure. Instead she made a final show of resistance.

  ‘If they knew . . . about Keith and me . . . mightn’t it help them find out who did it?’

  Simon sighed. ‘Very well then. If you’ve made up your mind to talk. But you will regret it, I think, and I’m certain that we shall. I ought to tell you that a reporter from the local is haunting Iriston.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I wish you would think carefully before deciding to blow the gaff.’

  She had expected him to be more energetic than this, but now he seemed to have grown tired of trying to cajole her into line. He remained silent for a space. Then he finished his drink.

  ‘We had better be off, my dear, or the Gestapo will get suspicious.’

  She entered Lazy Waters that morning with the sensations of one entering a dental surgery, despairingly certain that at some juncture she would either faint or be sick; and as in the latter she had to wait, with her nerves growing less and less controllable, while other white-faced patients returned from the torture chamber. Simon sat her in the lounge along with Dawn and Glynda but beyond the bare civilities she felt unable to talk to them. Dawn, she noticed, wore a two-piece suit that might almost have been described as severe, while Glynda wore a drab-coloured dress with a chaste neckline and a low-cut hem. Neither was wearing much make-up. It was the day of the vicar’s daughter.

  When Stella arrived Woody had been the occupant of the hot-seat, but after a quarter of an hour he emerged, looking more woeful than ever. He rolled his eyes at Dawn: ‘You’re next for the tumbril,’ and seemed about to retire when his eye met Stella’s. He hovered undecidedly. Then he shambled across to her. Stella rose and went out on the veranda and Woody hesitantly followed.

  ‘It’s hard lines, girlo . . . very hard lines.’

  She kept her back to him. She said: ‘You’re rather clumsy with a launch, Woody.’ As soon as the words were out she realized that he could put a wrong interpretation on them, but then it was too late. She grasped the veranda rail tightly.

  ‘Yeah.’ He purred the word. ‘I’m not a mucher with those things, am I?’

  ‘You should put out plenty of fenders when you moor at a quay-heading.’

  ‘Yeah, I should, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Otherwise you’ll scratch the varnish.’

  ‘I can see that, too.’

  ‘And leave traces there for people to find.’

  From the corner of her eye she saw his large hands close over the rail, more relaxed than her own and without the telltale white knuckles. She waited for him to reply but he leaned there silently. In a lower voice she added:

  ‘Nothing could excuse that letter, Woody.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He hesitated again, pulling a little on his hands. Then: ‘That’s not quite true, girlo. There are some things could excuse it.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, just some things.’

  ‘I want to know what they are.’

  ‘It wouldn’t help a bit, girlo. That’s all water under the bridge.’

  ‘I think you owe me an explanation.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe I do, too. But the way things have panned out . . . girlo, just let it ride.’

  ‘If it’s to do with Keith . . .’

  She stopped, a new idea springing into her mind. Until now she had given no thought to the possible significance of that anonymous warning. But of what could Woody have been warning her if it were not of what had actually happened . . . giving proof, proof positive, that Keith’s death had been contrived? She leaned forwards, an ominous dizziness seething up in her head. The stone flags of the path beneath her appeared to lift and ripple like the leaves of waterlilies. It would have been proof, but she had burnt it: perhaps the only proof that Keith was murdered. With her own hands she had destroyed the single, damning piece of evidence.

  ‘It is . . . and it isn’t.’ She heard his slow voice beside her.

  ‘Woody . . .’

  ‘Take it easy, girlo. It wasn’t to do with what you’re thinking.’

  ‘But if . . . if you knew . . .’

  ‘I didn’t know a darned thing. It was something else, something different. And now it doesn’t matter a spit.’

  She daren’t press him. She felt obliged to accept the assurance he gave her. She couldn’t bear a further evasion about the subject of the letter. Yes, it was probably innocent, probably referred to some intrigue of Dawn’s; that was likely, more than likely. Simon himself had given her a hint of it. She drew deliberate, deep breaths, keeping her head leaned far forward, and after some moments the paving flags became stationary and level again.

  ‘It’s nerves, girlo, nerves. We’ve all got ourselves a dose of them. Once you start people going they’ll believe the moon’s a balloon. Like Othello and the hankie . . . which isn’t so far-fetched, either. It’s the kid having bought it that makes bogies out of bushes.’

  ‘I’m feeling rather faint, Woody . . .’

  ‘Yeah. I can see you are.’

  ‘I think I’ll sit down again.’

  ‘I’ll go fetch you a reviver.’

  It was her fifth that morning but she drank it without a qualm. Usually it needed only two to give her a sensation of frivolity. Woody retired to the piano. He began playing his mindless music. She tried to fit her own mind to it, to make her brain just as empty and without purpose, but she found it hard not to be reminded that it was in this room she had met Keith. Woody had played his music then, at what seemed half a lifetime ago. Yet it was a matter of days, of hours: she could almost reach out and touch that evening.

  Her summons came at last and it was Simon himself who fetched her. He tried to flash her one of his smiles but he couldn’t hide the concern in his eyes. At the door of the study where the policemen were installed he gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder, then held a finger to his lips. A moment later she was in the room.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘TAKE A CHAIR, Miss Rushton.’

  There were three policemen facing her. In front of the window had been placed a table, behind which two of them were seated. They were dressed in plain clothes and the one who had spoken had removed his jacket; he was a large fleshy man with faded fair hair and a squashed nose. His colleague looked rather younger and wore his hair down to his collar, and though they bore nothing to distinguish them one could tell at a glance that they were policemen. Both had watchful, examining stares, and an air of carefully observed restraint; like a pair of obedient gundogs eyeing a bird they might not yet seize. The third, a WPC in uniform, was sitting at a table to the side. Her tunic was unbuttoned, her cap and gloves lying in front of her. She was armed with a reporter’s notebook and was sharpening a pencil with a razor-blade, and she hadn’t bothered to look up as Stella came through the door. Stella sat on the chair placed for her. It was directly in front of the table.

  ‘What is your permanent address, Miss Rushton?’

  She gave it, and her other details. They were scribbled down by the WPC at a pace that seemed to devour Stella’s words as she spoke them. The window was only slightly ajar. The atmosphere was hazy with smoke. The younger detective had been smoking but now he stubbed his cigarette; then he folded his arms and let the lids droop over his eyes. It was the elder man who was addressing her and he made a little speech.

  ‘As I expect you know, Miss Rushton, we are investigating the death of Keith Lea-Stephens. We have asked you here because we think you can help our enquiries. It may be painful for you, I’m afraid, since I understand he was a friend of yours, but you will appreciate that we want to clear the matter up as quickly as possible.’

  Stella nodded. She wished he wouldn’t talk quite so fast. Her mind seemed sluggish and dragging and needed more time to comprehend him. The brilliant light from the window was coming from directly behind his head; it was a strain to focus her eyes on him, it gave her a sensation of remoteness.

  ‘Did you know Keith Lea-Stephens before you met him in this house?’

  ‘No . . . I didn’t know him.’ The pencil scribbled like a whispered echo.

  ‘Had he been mentioned to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He admired your writing, I believe?’

  ‘He said he did. I don’t know. He had some books, books of mine.’

  ‘I see.’ The fleshy man, who was obviously the inspector in charge, looked frowningly at one of several typewritten sheets which lay on the table. ‘You must have had plenty of opportunity to notice his relations with other people here. Did anything strike you in particular – anything you feel might have a bearing?’

  This was much too complicated. Her mind struggled with it in dismay. It was as though she had ceased to be an intelligent person and had lapsed into idiocy. Her cheeks became hot.

  ‘I don’t understand . . . quite . . .’

  ‘Miss Rushton, you will surely have been told that there is some doubt in this matter. To be frank, we are not certain that Keith Lea-Stephens’ death was an accident. Now, I’m certain you will want to help us throw a little light on it.’

  ‘Yes . . . yes. I do.’

  ‘Then if you will just cast your mind back.’

  ‘I’m trying . . . I can’t remember. There was nothing that stands out.’

  ‘Was he friendly with his uncle?’

  ‘Oh yes. Quite friendly.’

  ‘With Miss le Fay? Mr Woodmancott?’

  ‘Yes. Everyone. They all liked him.’

  ‘Was he particularly friendly with someone – apart from yourself, of course?’

  ‘No, you see . . . he was different from them . . . he was a bit on his own.’

  ‘Was Miss le Fay particularly friendly?’

  ‘I . . . it’s hard to explain.’

  ‘Please try, Miss Rushton.’

  ‘Yes. It’s just that . . . well, they are all theatre people. He was an outsider, he didn’t fit in. He wasn’t used to that sort of person . . . but they weren’t unkind to him.’

  ‘And he had no particular friend – until you came along?’

  She felt her cheeks growing hotter still. ‘I didn’t claim to be his particular friend.’

  The inspector referred to his sheet. ‘You went sailing with him once or twice?’

  ‘Twice . . . yes.’

  ‘You were the only person to do so.’

  ‘Does that make me a particular friend?’

  He gave her a penetrating stare but didn’t pursue the point further. His younger colleague looked bored; he had his eyes fixed on the ceiling. A separate person from Stella was thinking: this is their everyday business, they will forget it over lunch, they’ll talk of cricket or cars or something . . .

  ‘I would like you to recall any conversation you remember, especially those that took place while Keith Lea-Stephens was absent. Can you remember what was said about him?’

  ‘In what way . . . how do you mean?’

  ‘Touching his relations with other people.’

  ‘I don’t . . . nothing was said . . .’

  ‘Come now, Miss Rushton.’

  She searched frenziedly in her memory for something harmless to give the brute, but her mind was almost a blank and she found it impossible to invent anything. Then she remembered a remark of Simon’s.

  ‘Mr Lea-Stephens thought it was good for him . . . mixing with unusual people, I mean. He thought Keith needed drawing out a little.’

  ‘He said that to you?’

  ‘Yes . . . we were talking about Keith.’

  ‘And that was perhaps his object in inviting his nephew to stay with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could have been.’

  ‘To make him acquainted with some unusual people?’

  ‘He didn’t say that . . . Keith wanted to come. He was very keen on the Broads.’

  ‘What else did Mr Lea-Stephens say?’

  ‘Nothing. That’s all I can remember.’

  ‘Take your time, Miss Rushton.’

  ‘It’s no use. I can’t remember.’

  Again he transfixed her with his stare and she was certain he knew she was lying. It was a negative form of untruth, perhaps, but even this she was bad at. Her lips had gone dry, her mouth was nearly devoid of moisture; she could hear a pulse in her head as she waited for the next attack.

  ‘You know Mr Simpson, of course?’

  ‘Jeff Simpson. Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t he fond of Miss le Fay?’

  She was surprised. ‘Yes, I believe he is.’

  ‘He is in love with her, in fact?’

  ‘I . . . well, I couldn’t say.’

  ‘But he gave you that impression?’

  ‘I suppose he did. He’s very fond of her.’

  ‘Now think carefully, Miss Rushton. What was Miss le Fay’s attitude to the deceased?’

  ‘She was . . .’ Stella faltered, the drift of these questions slowly dawning on her. She was amazed. It seemed incredible that he could take such a naïve idea seriously. Then she saw at once that he had noted her reaction, was intently following the expression of her face. She bit her lips; she was a fool. She was dealing with a professional.

  ‘She was what, Miss Rushton?’

  ‘She was simply friendly, like the rest.’

  He referred to another of his devilish sheets. ‘She says herself that she found him “quite a dear”.’

  ‘She is an actress. It’s the way she talks.’

  ‘That was not the impression she gave me.’

  ‘She may . . . it is possible she tried to flirt with him.’

  ‘You saw her doing that?’

  ‘I . . . I noticed her trying.’

  ‘And Mr Simpson, would he have noticed it?’

  ‘He may have done. But it was nothing serious.’

  ‘I see . . . nothing serious.’

  The inspector pondered, as though what she had told him was highly significant. His manner of taking it made her wonder if after all it possessed some relevance. She experienced a depressing sense of inadequacy, of being unable really to judge the matter: it was something that required a trained mind, where the lay intelligence didn’t count . . .

  ‘Just one more question before I ask you to describe the events of Tuesday. It has to do with Mr Lea-Stephens’ attitude towards your – friendliness – with his nephew.’ The inspector paused, then added sneeringly: ‘He discouraged it, didn’t he?’

  ‘No – on the contrary!’ The denial was out before she could stop it. Only then, with her heart pounding, did she realize that she had been trapped. She stared wide-eyed at her tormentor, who stared back at her indifferently.