‘Well, Adrian and Miranda are so certain that the girl would never have taken such a risk that, apart from anything the police may be thinking of doing, they have decided to take matters further.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘They want to put a private investigator on to the job of finding out what happened. It’s a nuisance the doctors couldn’t decide exactly when the girl was drowned and, of course, there is still the question of that suitcase of hers. It hasn’t turned up anywhere yet.’
‘So what exactly are Adrian and Miranda trying to do? I hope they are not taking on more than they can cope with.’
‘Oh, they are going to do that, all right.’
‘You mean they’ve got hold of some private eye who’ll lead them up the garden and charge them the earth for doing so?’
‘Not at all. They are going to find out whether Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley will look into the thing for them.’
‘But she’s a top-notch mental specialist, accredited to the Home Office and goodness knows what all besides! I’ve heard her lecture.’
‘Yes, so have Cupar and I. Cupar is a doctor and he’s actually met her, and he says it’s a crazy idea to approach her. He says that, if she thought the case had any interesting possibilities, she’d certainly take it on and probably charge no more than her expenses, but she won’t touch it, I’m sure. Of course I wish them luck with her, but, to start with, she has as much money as anybody either needs or wants, even in these days of inflation, and unless it will advance or in any way improve her reputation, which, in all conscience, is formidable enough already, she won’t be interested in an open and shut case like this one. Adrian and Miranda may have their own opinions, but they are only opinions, after all, and, as Cupar says, in face of the verdict at the inquest, worth less than nothing. Of course I feel very sorry for them, because, however illogical such an attitude may be, they will always feel in some degree responsible for this girl’s death. I quite understand that, nonsense though it is. By the way, how old was she?’
‘Nineteen or twenty, I think, but she seemed such a kid, all the same.’
‘Granted, but she was not such a kid, as you call her, in some of the ways that matter, especially to a fairly newly married wife such as myself.’
‘You don’t mean she made a pass at Lowson?’
‘At Cupar? Yes, indeed she did. She took him for a walk and he came back quite upset and said awful things about her.’
‘I thought she was out all that day. Anyway, she was a bit of a nymphomaniac, I rather fancy.’
‘Is that why you left the cottage and took a room at Stack Ferry?’
‘How did you know where I’d gone? Oh, I had told Adrian and Miranda, I suppose. No, Camilla was not the reason. I wanted a setting for my second book. I had hoped to find it here, but nothing worked out, so I decided to push on and try my luck elsewhere.’
‘Is that the whole story?’ She met his eyes and held them.
‘Well, not quite. Actually I had intended to finish the week here and squash in with the overspill until Adrian and Miranda went back to London, but, well, the personnel of the overspill forced me to change my mind.’
‘I see.’
Palgrave saw that she did. He looked away and said: ‘Well, you must admit that the circumstances had their embarrassing aspect.’
She smiled with the sudden sweetness it gave him a pang to remember.
‘Not for me,’ she said. ‘But, then, I’m very happy, and that makes all the difference. Besides, this is the last you will see of me. We’re moving.’
‘Are you really happy, Morag?’
‘There is no need to ask, is there? And if I were not?’
‘They say nobody should marry a writer.’
‘Except perhaps another writer, and that is something I shall never be.’
‘People who inspire writers don’t need to be writers themselves.’
‘Colin—’
‘Well?’
‘You used a key to get in that night, didn’t you?’
‘Which night?’
‘The night Camilla must have come back later and packed her suitcase.’
‘I didn’t know Lowson heard me. I tried not to make any noise, but I had to find my suitcase.’
‘Miranda and Cupar both heard you go out. Why did you go upstairs?’
‘Simple reason. I had been trying to camp out in my car and found it very uncomfortable, so I came back here and thought I might as well stretch out on the spare bed in her room for half an hour, but I changed my mind and only changed my clothes and had a shave, then went back to the car before Camilla came in.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, when she did come in she must have been quieter than you were, because nobody seems to have heard a sound. I suppose she did come back that night?’
‘She hadn’t come back by the time I left, that’s all I know. What time was it when you came back from your walk?’
‘My walk?’
‘I thought you went for a walk on the marshes. I half thought I saw you.’
‘It couldn’t have been me. I was never on the marshes that night. You must have seen a ghost!’
‘I hardly think so. I don’t believe in them. The thing was a good way off. I took it to be you because I remembered you were wearing white.’
‘But I wasn’t! I had been back to the cottage and changed into something warmer before I went out again. It turned quite chilly that evening after we left the pub.’
‘Yes, I can subscribe to that! It was damned chilly on the back seat of my car with a window open to let in some air. Oh, well, it must have been a pocket of mist that I saw.’
‘Colin, I’m going to ask you to tell me something in confidence.’
‘That sounds sinister — or it would do, if my blameless past wasn’t an open book.’
‘I’m not so sure about that! Anyway, here goes — and, if you refuse to answer, this jury will find you guilty.’
‘You make me feel guilty already! Why are you being so mysterious?’
‘Oh, there isn’t any mystery. Colin, you know Camilla’s suitcase and all her clothes are missing, don’t you?’
‘I ought to, considering that one of the County plainclothes flatties did his best to turn me and my hotel bedroom upside down in a search for the same suitcase.’
‘Well, did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Sneak back here that night and pack it and take it and her off somewhere?’
Palgrave was too much astonished to be angry. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he said. ‘What a question! The girl was far too much of an incubus for me to have taken on her and her blasted suitcase.’
‘I only asked because, when you left, Miranda saw you from her bedroom window and you were carrying something.’
‘Yes, my own suitcase.’
‘Surely that could have waited until the morning?’
‘Not if you knew how cold and uncomfortable it was, trying to kip down on the back seat of the car.’
‘Anyway, I thought I remembered you putting your suitcase in the boot of your car when we were on the way to the pub.’
‘Then your memory was playing tricks, my dear girl. I had every intention of coming back here to breakfast and picking up my suitcase then. It was only the discomfort of sleeping in the car that made me change my mind. Either Camilla took her suitcase out of the cottage before we had our swim, or she sneaked back after I’d gone, picked it up and went along to meet some bloke.’
‘I suppose either is possible. We don’t know there was a bloke, though, do we?’
‘Oh, Morag,’ said Palgrave, exasperated at last, ‘don’t talk so bloody daft! Of course there was a bloke, and he’s not damn well going to come forward and produce that suitcase. I wouldn’t, either, in his shoes. One thing I do know. Camilla would never have gone off on her own! It’s true we can’t prove there was a bloke, but, if you knew Camilla as we knew her, the inference is obvious. Besides, you said you did know.’