Mallett went through everything with me in painstaking detail. I was flattered that he interviewed me himself. More normally a witness like me would have been handed over to a couple of his Detective Constables, and I knew that the superintendent did it himself out of deference to my rank.
I don’t think I told him anything he didn’t already know, but it was obvious that he was by nature a painstakingly thorough man, the kind of police officer who only very rarely made mistakes.
I did not tell him anything about my mixed up feelings about Robin Davey, of course. But I had this curious feeling that he was one jump ahead of me again, that he had twigged my motivation right away. You see, I didn’t want to think that the paragon I had turned Davey into in my mind could be mixed up in anything dodgy, let alone a dodgy death, but I really needed to know one way or the other. Considering that I had had only such a brief acquaintance with the uncrowned King of Abri it was pretty daft really.
‘He’s a very plausible man, is Davey,’ Todd remarked at one stage, for no apparent reason. ‘Got an answer for everything. Smooth blighter. You have to watch a man like that, you know...’ His voice tailed off.
He seemed capable sometimes of getting answers without asking any questions, did Todd Mallett. Very disconcerting. I remembered suddenly that Mallett knew a bit about becoming emotionally involved where you shouldn’t and pitting logic against your feelings. The story of how he had fallen dramatically in love with a faded movie actress during a murder investigation was a popular piece of gossip in virtually every nick in the West of England. At the time the woman’s son had been the number one suspect. But Todd had been lucky. The boy was found to be in the clear and Todd had been free to carry on with his romancing. He and the actress were still together too, apparently.
I wondered fleetingly if he would have carried on even if the boy had been guilty, even if his own professional position had been put in jeopardy by the relationship. And it was of some comfort to me that I thought there was a very strong chance that he would have done.
I signed my statement form, retrieved my car from the car park and drove back to Bristol. On the way I began thinking about all that I had learned. The very idea of Natasha having died in the way that she did made me feel quite sick. I could no longer really understand why I hadn’t reported my own near fatal Abri experience. I had allowed Robin Davey to convince me that nothing like it would ever happen again, and, particularly given my job, my behaviour had been unforgivable.
During the afternoon I did my best to concentrate on my own workload. But I could not get the death of Natasha Felks, overshadowed always by the spectre of her lover, out of my head, could not stop myself going over and over what it really meant.
I stayed in my broom cupboard office until gone 10 p.m., kidding myself that I was making up for the time I had lost that morning. And by the time I got home to my one-roomed hovel I was tired out and looking forward to nothing more than a stiff whisky and bed.
As I walked in the phone was ringing. It was Robin Davey.
Six
‘I expect you’ve heard the news,’ he said quietly.
I forced myself to be businesslike. I was a bloody policeman after all.
‘Why are you calling me?’ I asked, keeping my voice as cool as I could.
‘Well... because it nearly happened to you, of course.’ He paused. ‘I can’t explain more than that... I just wanted to call...’
‘I didn’t know about Jason’s little peculiarity when I went out to the Pencil,’ I said. ‘Natasha did. Why would she go with him?’
I could almost feel him shrug.
‘Tash was like that. Impetuous. Thought she could always be in charge, thought she knew Jason well enough to spot the danger signs, I expect. We’d had an exceptionally big school of dolphins off the island. It was a beautiful day for the time of year. Nonetheless... foolhardy, I suppose. Can’t really explain it...’
It was almost exactly what he had said in his statement to Todd Mallett. His voice tailed off, and there was a pause before he started to speak again.
‘This is not the first time I have suffered a tragic loss, you know...’
From the moment I first met Robin Davey on Abri I had found that strangely old-fashioned way of talking he sometimes adopted quite endearing — except when poor Natasha had abruptly arrived on the scene when suddenly everything about the man had irritated me — and he certainly sounded terribly upset. But I was angry. I was not going to get involved in this — or rather not any more than I was already. I felt I had been dragged into something which should not ever have concerned me, and I suppose one of the reasons for my anger was that I knew it was largely my own fault that I had got into a tangle. There was no doubt that I should have reported what had happened — certainly to the Health and Safety Executive and probably, in my case, to cover myself, to my senior officer. I had after all been the victim of almost criminal negligence on a holiday island. I hadn’t reported it for one reason and one reason only — because of my quite irrational infatuation with Davey. In a way I too could be held responsible for the death of Natasha Felks.
My anger boiled over. And I wasn’t going to fall for emotional blackmail either.
‘Robin, I can’t help you with the past,’ I snapped. ‘Natasha’s death is a police matter now. It’s in the hands of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary as you well know. It is nothing to do with me and I don’t want any further connection. I have given a statement about what happened to me on Abri and that’s the end of it all as far as I am concerned. It would be better if you didn’t call again.’
I put the phone down and afterwards I couldn’t believe what I had done. I had hung up on my paragon.
The phone rang again half an hour later. I cursed myself for half-hoping in spite of myself and my instruction to him that the caller might be Robin Davey again.
It was Julia.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked.
I was tired. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ I responded rather sharply.
‘Well...’ Julia continued patiently. ‘I heard about Natasha Felks’ death. Could hardly miss it, splashed across all the papers. “Second tragedy for dashing millionaire”, and all of that.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me, Julia.’ I was still speaking curtly, protesting too much, more than likely.
At this point I thought she may have given a little sigh of exasperation, although I couldn’t be certain. But when she started speaking again her voice quite clearly held a note of deliberately exaggerated patience.
‘Rose, she was killed in the same way you nearly were. The Devon and Cornwall Constabulary are treating her death as suspicious and are investigating. It seems pretty bloody likely to me that they’re investigating your friend Robin Davey.’
‘So? Why should that bother me? He’s not my friend anyway,’ I said airily.
‘No, no, of course not.’ Julia’s voice indicated quite clearly that she didn’t believe a word of my protests.
I relented just a little.
‘I’ve had to give a statement, though. Thought I’d better come clean.’
‘As you should have done when it happened.’
Julia had a knack of getting straight to the nub of the matter, perhaps that was the journalist in her. I said nothing for a moment. She probably knew me better than anyone, and when she spoke again she had changed tack. She was suddenly reassuring. I realised that she had sensed my guilt, my niggling suspicion that if I had reported my narrow escape on Abri at the proper time, then Natasha Felks might still be alive.
‘Oh, don’t fret,’ she said. ‘It’s easy to be wise after the event. It’s just a terrible accident, I’m sure.’