‘No, a girl who picked you up,’ said Dame Beatrice firmly. The young man looked rueful and agreed.
‘It wouldn’t actually have been the other way about,’ he said, ‘because she really did look more than a bit of a mess. Tatty old reach-me-downs, you know, and a gosh-awful dirty sweater far too big for her, and hair that could have done with a decent shampoo – not that one cares what people look like nowadays, of course, especially on holiday.’
‘But she heard you had a yacht and thought you were alone and told you how she longed to visit the bird sanctuary but could not afford to hire a boatman or join a pleasure cruise, so—’
‘Good Lord! You might have been there! Of course she hadn’t banked on my parents’ coming along. I could have done without them, too, of course, but I could have laughed at the expression on her face when they turned up, Ma complete with sunglasses and a tea basket and Dad in the frightful shorts he wears on the boat. Camilla looked daggers at me when they came aboard. She had shed the washed-out reach-me-downs and the dreadful sweater and was sunning herself in a bikini on the cabin top when they breezed along. She obviously hadn’t expected any additions to the party, and she was anything but pleased to see them. They weren’t too delighted to see her, either. She was a rather obvious little sea-serpent, if it isn’t disrespectful to say so. There’s a type, you know, and they are not very easy to choke off. I hadn’t bothered to attempt to shed her, as a matter of fact, because I knew that the parents, who are not exactly fin de siècle – I mean, they’ve heard of the Permissive Society, but that’s about all – would soon bottle up the young lizard, and so it happened for most of the time.’
‘For most of the time?’
‘Well, yes. She and I went for a swim when we landed at the bird sanctuary, as I think I mentioned.’
‘Did she give you any details about herself or her plans?’
‘When we went swimming?’
‘Or while you were all on the yacht.’
‘She told my mother she was studying art and was staying in Saltacres with some people at a cottage there, that’s all. Oh, she talked a lot of rot (intended to impress us, I suppose) about art being her religion, but I don’t think any of us were taken in by it, and when we reached the bird sanctuary it became pretty clear that she and I were to disappear among the sand-dunes, leaving the parents to look at birds.’
‘Did you find her suggestion embarrassing?’
‘Not really. It struck me as damn’ funny. She was so very undesirable. There are far better prospects at our local tennis club – and that’s not saying a lot! I said it was a swim or nothing, so we swam, but not for long. She was quite good, though – a stronger swimmer than I am, as a matter of fact. I’ll tell you another thing, too. She knew all about the tides along that coast. I believe her friends are right, you know. Funny she took a chance that night and got drowned. Could she have been a bit sloshed or something, and her drowning was accidental?’
‘That is a possibility which had not occurred to me.’
‘Girls can do strange things under the influence,’ said young Mr Hamilton, wagging his head and looking profound. ‘Men also, no doubt.’
‘I once took on a bet that I’d learn to pole-vault. Chickened out later, and lost the bet, of course, after I had sobered up.’ Dame Beatrice cackled and then asked: ‘What happened when you got back to Stack Ferry?’
‘She thanked us for a lovely outing and cut her stick. We never saw her again. I say! It’s tea-time. Do come back to the house and eat a few shrimps with us.’
‘May I venture to enquire whether your enterprise this day did thrive, madam?’ asked George, when, seen off with smiles and cordial hand-wavings by the Hamilton family, she joined him for the return journey to Stack Ferry.
‘Time will show, George. I may or may not have sown productive seed. Tomorrow we go home for the night. In Mrs Gavin’s absence there will be correspondence to deal with. After that, we return to these parts to interview the house agent who lets cottages to summer visitors. Do you like this neighbourhood, George?’
‘I prefer a more rolling and a more wooded countryside, madam.’
To their left stretched the miles of marshes, dunes and banks of shingle. Dame Beatrice had a sudden vision of the body of a thin young girl, her hair looking like a dark tangle of seaweed, lying dead and defenceless while the uncaring moon lit a path of glory across the sea.
‘I agree with you,’ she said. ‘Apart from any tragedies which may have taken place in these parts, there is an infinite sadness about the landscape itself. However, so far as my researches are concerned, I make what may be called negative progress.’
‘The Hamilton family were of no help, madam?’
‘They were of help only in the sense that I indicate. Their son, whom I was able to interview while he was alone on the yacht, gave me his story and it was corroborated, without any prompting from him or me, by his parents, with whom, as you know, I had tea. It does not seem possible, let alone likely, that Miss St John met her murderer in Stack Ferry that day when she and Mr Kirby came there. Her time seems fully accounted for. She was alone when she met young Mr Hamilton in a bar, she was never out of sight of at least one of the Hamilton family on their trip to the bird sanctuary, she and the young man bathed and when they all returned to moorings she appears to have gone straight back to join Mr Kirby at the spot where they had parked the car. Mrs Hamilton saw them together when she, too, went ashore.’
That evening Dame Beatrice informed the receptionist at The Stadholder that she would be going home for a day and a night. She paid the hotel bill up to date and re-booked the two rooms. At the Stone House there was, as she had surmised, a pile of correspondence to be dealt with, including a long letter from Laura describing her holiday activities.
On the appointed day, George drove Dame Beatrice north-eastwards to visit the house agent who let holiday accommodation in and around the village of Saltacres. The Hamiltons had disposed of one problem. The larger matter of what had happened to Camilla’s suitcase still had to be resolved.
CHAPTER 10
THE WITNESS
‘I will not touch your mantle,
I’ll let your clothes alone,
I’ll take you out of the water clear,
My dear, to be my own.’
Anonymous
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The house agent lived in a small town set among the low hills to the south of Saltacres and had only three cottages in that village on his books. One of these had been taken first by the Kirbys and then by Cupar and Morag Lowson; the second was on regular holiday hire to a family of five who booked it year after year, and the third had been let for a month that summer to a party of three young men who hired a boat and a local boatman and went fishing. Dame Beatrice ascertained that they had used up three weeks of their stay, which meant that they would have been able to see Camilla alive, had they wished to do so.
‘I suppose I can book their cottage from mid-week to mid-week, Wednesday to Wednesday?’ she said to the house agent. ‘These men’s tenancy will be up next week, you say, so if their cottage proves suitable—’
‘Mid-week, madam? I am afraid the lettings are from Saturday to Saturday, on a fortnightly basis.’
‘Oh, I see. Do you never deviate from that rule?’
‘Not ever, madam, not even to oblige our regulars. It could mean leaving a cottage empty for half a week, you see, most people preferring Saturdays.’