line. Cord. Round the waist and made fast to something.’
‘Will we cut it?’
‘Wait while I try a wee haul. Hold steady, I said. Now then.’
An interval with heavy breathing.
‘Coming up. Here she comes.’
‘Suitcase?’
‘That’s right. Now. Bear a hand to ship it. It’s bloody heavy. God, don’t do that, man. We don’t want any more disfigurement.’
A splash and then a thud.
‘Fair enough. Now, you can give way. Signal the ambulance, Sarge. Handsomely, now.’
The rhythmic clunk, dip and drip: receding.
Troy thought with horror: ‘They’re towing her. It’s Our Mutual Friend again. Through the detergent foam. They’ll lift her out, dripping foam, and put her on a stretcher and into an ambulance and drive her away. There’ll be an autopsy and an inquest and I’ll have to say what I saw and, please God, Rory will be back.’
The Zodiac trembled. Trees and blue sky with a wisp of cloud, moved across the porthole. For a minute or so they were under way and then she felt the slight familiar shock when the craft came up to her mooring.
Miss Hewson opened the door and looked in. She held a little bottle rather coyly between thumb and forefinger and put her head on one side like her brother.
‘Wide awake?’ she said. ‘I guess so. Now, look what I’ve brought!’
She tiptoed the one short pace between the door and the bunk and stooped. Her face really was like a bun, Troy thought, with currants for eyes and holes for nostrils and a bit of candy-peel for a mouth. She shrank back a little from Miss Hewson’s face.
‘I just knew how you’d be. All keyed-up like nobody’s business. And I brought you my Trankwitones. You needn’t feel any hesitation about using them, dear. They’re recommended by pretty well every darn’ doctor in the States and they just act –’
The voice droned on. Miss Hewson was pouring water into Troy’s glass.
‘Miss Hewson, you’re terribly kind but I don’t need anything like that. Really. I’m perfectly all right now and very much ashamed of myself.’
‘Now, listen dear –’
‘No, truly. Thank you very much but I’d rather not.’
‘You know something? Mama’s going to get real tough with baby –’
‘But, Miss Hewson, I promise you I don’t want –’
‘May I come in?’ said Dr Natouche.
Miss Hewson turned sharply and for a moment they faced each other.
‘I think,’ he said, and it was the first time Troy had heard him speak to her, ‘that Mrs Alleyn is in no need of sedation, Miss Hewson.’
‘Well, I’m surely not aiming – I just thought if she could get a little sleep – I –’
‘That was very kind but there is no necessity for sedation.’
‘Well – I certainly wouldn’t want to –’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. If I may just have a word with my patient.’
‘Your patient! Pardon me. I was not aware – well, pardon me, Doctor,’ said Miss Hewson with a spurt of venom in her voice and slammed the door on her exit.
Troy said hurriedly: ‘I want to talk to you. It’s about what we discussed before. About Miss Rickerby-Carrick. Dr Natouche, have you seen –’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They asked me to make an examination – a very superficial examination, of course.’
‘I could hear them: outside there. I could hear what they found. She’s been murdered, hasn’t she? Hasn’t she?’
He leant over the bunk and shut the porthole. He drew up the little stool and sat on it, leaning towards her. ‘I think,’ he said as softly as his huge voice permitted, ‘we should be careful.’ His fingers closed professionally on Troy’s wrist.
‘You could lock the door,’ she said.
‘So I could.’ He did so and turned back to her.
‘Until the autopsy,’ he murmured, ‘it will be impossible to say whether she was drowned or not. Externally, in most respects, it would appear that she was. It can be argued, and no doubt it will be argued, that she committed suicide by weighting her suitcase and tying it to herself and perhaps throwing herself into The River from the weir bridge.’
‘If that was so, what becomes of the telephone call and the telegram from Carlisle?’
‘I cannot think of any answer consistent with suicide.’
‘Murder, then?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘I am going to tell you something. It’s complicated and a bit nebulous but I want to tell you. First of all – my cabin. You know it was booked –’
‘To somebody called Andropulos? I saw the paragraph in the paper. I did not speak of it as I thought it would be unpleasant for you.’
‘Did any of the others?’
‘Not to my knowledge.’
‘I’ll make this as quick and as clear as I can – it has to do with a case of my husband’s. There’s a man called Foljambe –’
A crisp knock on her door and Superintendent Tillottson’s voice: ‘Mrs Alleyn? Tillotson here. May I come in.’
Troy and Dr Natouche stared at each other. She whispered: ‘He’ll have to,’ and called out: ‘Come in, Mr Tillottson.’ At the same time Dr Natouche opened the door.
Suddenly the little cabin was crammed with enormous men. Superintendent Tillottson and Doctor Natouche were both over six feet tall and comparably broad. She began to introduce these mammoths to each other and then realized they had been introduced already in hideous formality by Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She could not help looking at Mr Tillottson’s large pink hands which were a little puckered as if he had been doing the washing. She was very glad he did not offer one to her, after his hearty fashion, for shaking.
She said: ‘Dr Natouche is looking after me on account of my making a perfect ass of myself.’
Mr Tillottson said, with a sort of wide spread of blandness, that this was very nice. Dr Natouche then advised Troy to take things easy and left them.
Troy pushed back the red blanket, sat up on her bunk, put her feet on the deck and ran her fingers through her short hair. ‘Well, Mr Tillottson,’ she said, ‘what about this one?’
