‘Right,’ he said. ‘That’s that then.’ He must have been struggling, poor man, because he turned very sharply and almost ran out of the little room back to the open air.
‘You can go now,’ said the constable. He was staring at Fleur, with his face twisted up, staring at the way she was crouched over the body, six inches away from the soaking cloth and the flesh. He was horrified and I was not far behind him.
‘Fleur,’ I said. ‘Darling, let’s go.’
She spoke, just one muttered word, and then straightened and turned away.
‘What was that, miss?’ the constable said. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ said Fleur, and walked out onto the beach. But she had not said nothing. I did not repeat it, but I had heard it.
She had said, ‘Five.’
4
The word seemed to echo throughout the dank dimness of the cable station, until it and the walls around me and the low ceiling above my head were all pressing closer than I could bear and I stumbled out into the sunshine.
Fleur had walked down to the water’s edge – even though the tide was low and the going must have been unpleasant with such a great deal of seaweed lying in bands across the beach – whither the constable looked on the point of following her. At least he was standing shifting from enormous foot to enormous foot, working himself into a little hollow in the shingle, and was twisting his cap in his hands with a rhythmic efficiency which promised to ruin it for ever.
‘Where’s Sergeant…?’ I said, looking around.
‘Turner,’ said the constable. ‘Away to get a wee drink from the burn. His wame’s no’ fit for thon.’ He jerked his head back towards the cable station.
‘It didn’t do my tummy much good either,’ I said, swallowing hard. (I am a past master at Scotch after all my years immersed in it.) ‘She, I mean. Not it. She.’
‘Aye, well,’ said the constable, and he gave me a kindly look. ‘She’s long gone and past carin’, missus.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘How long would you say, Constable…?’
‘Reid,’ he replied. ‘A wee while, anyway.’
I sighed. Even a past master cannot distinguish the Scotch whiles – a wee while, a fair while and a good while – without some reference point at which to start.
‘Not today then?’ I said, employing imbecility to shake him into further detail.
‘The day?’ he said, with ready scorn. ‘Naw, never. Three, four days easy. No’ a week. I’m sayin’ three days, missus.’
‘You can really be that precise?’ I said, wondering at how much practice a village constable could have had in this grisly specialism. Reid swept his arm across the view before us.
‘Fishin’,’ he said and did not need to say more.
‘Right,’ I replied, and then we both stood and watched Fleur in silence.
‘I tell you what else, missus,’ Reid said at last, when the three of us had held our tableau long enough for seagulls to alight on the bands of seaweed and start their scavenging, ‘I bet I can tell you where she went in too. If she went in off the cliffs and no’ out a boat, anyway.’
‘That would be handy,’ I said.
‘Likes of if she left anythin’ behind with her name on,’ said Reid. ‘Find out who she was.’
‘Hm,’ I said. I was thinking how best to suggest that they should ask someone else from the school to confirm it was not Miss Beauclerc lying there (without absolutely dropping Fleur in it) since clearly if Fleur had added this latest body to her growing collection she would not be above lying. I stole a glance at Reid wondering how to broach it.
As a rule I am beyond scrupulous. I break no laws and I do not collude to help others break them, and if I had known there was a body in the offing I would have made sure and said all that to Pearl on the telephone. As matters stood, however, I was hogtied. I had promised Pearl to help her sister; telling a police constable she was a self-confessed murderer did not fall comfortably within the bounds of helpfulness as Pearl would understand it, I was sure. On the other hand, how could I get a second opinion organised without explaining my doubts about the first?
All in all then, Reid’s hope for a tidy parcel of belongings left on a cliff top was mine too.
‘So where would that be?’ I said.
‘Down Dunskey Castle way,’ said Reid.
‘Isn’t this Dunskey Castle?’ I asked him. He gave me a pitying look.
‘This is Dunskey House,’ he said. ‘The castle’s away the other side o’ the town. And I’m thinking maybe if we go and have a wee scout round down there, we’ll find a clue. Otherwise…’
‘Quite,’ I said. ‘I suppose there aren’t name tags sewn into her clothes, are there? Her underclothes?’
‘No’ checked yet,’ said Reid, and who could blame him? ‘The police surgeon’s the man for that.’ He paused. ‘Or a mutch-wife.’ He sighed. ‘Or maybe somebody’ll report a woman missin’, and we can leave the poor soul be.’
How to explain that it took so long for the notion to strike me? Rosa Aldo had disappeared and here was a body, yet I had made no connection between the two. I put a hand to my mouth, picturing Giuseppe’s grief if that was his adored and beloved wife lying in there.
‘Missus?’ said Reid.
But why would Fleur Lipscott kill a washerwoman?
‘You all right?’
But might not the killer of five people be indiscriminate in exactly that way?
‘You feelin’ sick?’
I took my hand away from my mouth again.
‘I think I know who it is,’ I said.
‘Good grief!’ said the harsh voice of the sergeant behind me. ‘You might have spoken up before now, madam.’ I turned to see him glaring at me out of a pale face. ‘This is a serious business, you know.’
‘I didn’t recognise the woman,’ I said, drawing myself up and glaring back, out of a face as pale as his I am sure. ‘I just remembered something. Mrs Aldo from the village is missing.’
‘Who?’ said Reid.
‘Mrs Giuseppe Aldo. I don’t know her address.’
‘The Eye-tie’s wife?’ said Sergeant Turner. He wheeled around and stared at the cable station door. ‘Aye, it could be, it could be. All dressed in black that way. And more like a foreigner to go flinging herself in the water than one of our own.’
Reid’s eyes narrowed and his head shook a little, too small a movement for his boss to see. I noticed it, though, and I knew we were in accord. The man was a fool.
‘So, shall we fetch Mr Aldo?’ I said.
‘We?’ said the sergeant, staring coldly.
‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘He’s a… friend of a friend of mine. In fact, this friend of mine – a Mr Osborne – will probably want to come with him, as I came with Miss Lipscott, don’t you know.’ Which was stating it rather strongly; the truth was I wanted Alec to come along with Joe Aldo. If there was a body in his case he should see it.
‘Are we talking about the same folk?’ said the sergeant. ‘Black-haired Eye-tie that fries fish at the end of the harbour?’
‘Giuseppe Aldo,’ I said. ‘That’s the chap.’
‘Funny friend for you, madam,’ he replied.
‘My acquaintance is wide and varied, Sergeant,’ I assured him. ‘And speaking of friends…’ I jerked my head towards the shoreline. ‘I’d better get Miss Lipscott home, hadn’t I?’
‘Where is she?’ the sergeant said.
I wheeled round to look at where Fleur had been. There was no sign of her.
‘Where’s she gone?’ I said, stupidly, and exchanged a glance with Reid.
‘She’ll have walked round the head to the other wee beach there,’ he said, pointing. I set off after her, trying to hurry in the deep shingle which only produced the mired feeling of a nightmare, when one surges and struggles and gets precisely nowhere. At last, however, I gained the hard, wet grit below the tide line and could break into a trot as I rounded the promontory dividing the cable station cove from the next one down. This was a sandy, sheltered spot with a deep swathe of meadow grass at its back stretching up to the lane. There were no rocks; nowhere to hide. And there was no Fleur.