The Mudflats of the Dead

CHAPTER 6

SERIOUS DOUBTS

‘Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,

The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear

Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,

Blind gods that cannot spare.’

A.C. Swinburne

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Somewhat shattered by the interview with the Inspector, Palgrave decided to leave Stack Ferry at the end of the week. The plot of his book was maturing in the most irresistible and comforting way. All that remained, he thought, was to write the story. That would be done more conveniently in his London lodgings than in the claustrophobic, barely furnished little upstair room at The Stadholder, especially if it was going to be open to police inspection at any hour of the day or night. He recognised this last thought as psychotic and wondered whether he was becoming the victim of a persecution mania. This must at all costs be suppressed. He could not afford to have irrational fears come between him and his novel.

He thought he had settled upon his heroine. She was to be a femme fatale in her early thirties, beautiful, sophisticated, incredibly attractive, but he realised that she was turning into Morag, and this was the last thing he had either envisaged or wanted. He made a determined effort to turn her into the Camilla he had known. She would have to be older than Camilla, of course, and that coltish immaturity changed to suit his theme, but Camilla it would have to be. In bed that night he wondered (and found himself worried about it) whether in death she was going to haunt him even more effectively than, during the few days of their acquaintanceship, she had attempted to do in life.

He began to think over everything he knew about Camilla.

It was precious little, but that, he realised, would prove more of an advantage than the reverse. She would have to be provided with a background. He wondered what sort of childhood she had had, how and when she had lost both her parents and under whose testamentary dispositions she had obtained her modest but undeniable private income.

He knew that she had shared a London flat with three other women all older than herself. He had heard little about them from Camilla, but Miranda had told him more. There was fat, dark, slightly moustached Gerda who, like Miranda, taught part-time at the art school and otherwise painted racehorses, pedigree hunters and showy little trotting-ponies. There was Mevagissey, descendant, (according to Camilla, who obviously had not believed the claim) of a hundred earls and was now in her fifth year at the art school because she had set her cap at the principal and was still hoping to trap him into marrying her. Lastly there was Fenella, who, according to Camilla, was a callgirl when she was not at the art school where, so far, she had not learnt enough even to slap paint on a barn door, let alone contrive a decent picture.

He wondered how soon they had learned of Camilla’s death. Miranda would have told them by this time, even if they had not read of it in the papers. He wondered how they had taken the news. Had they been fond of Camilla, he wondered, or had they regarded her merely as a person who was good for her share of the rent? He began weaving fantasies which became wilder and more unlikely as sleep came nearer to him. When he did fall asleep, his dreams were even more fantastic than his thoughts and filled him with an almost nightmare dread, so that he was relieved to be awake again.

He worked hard all the next morning on his book and in the afternoon took his car out. He cruised around the neighbourhood for an hour or so, followed the road to the south and then came upon a signpost which showed that there was a cross-country route to Saltacres. He had no desire to return there, but concluded that there would be a diversion somewhere along the route which would take him back to Stack Ferry.

Then another thought struck him. Adrian and Miranda would have vacated the cottage and gone back to London, but the Lowsons would still be in possession. A longing came over him to see Morag again. When he came to a turning which would have taken him back to Stack Ferry he avoided it and continued on his way.

He was ready with his excuse for calling on the Lowsons. He would ask whether they knew the Kirbys’ London address so that he could write and thank them for their kindness to him and to ask whether he might call upon them when he got back to his lodgings and take them out for a drink or perhaps to the theatre.

Thus armed, he parked his car in the wide part of the village street where he had always left it, smoothed down his hair and went along to knock on the cottage door.

Morag was alone. She did not seem in the least surprised to see him, but invited him in as though she had been expecting him.

‘Why, Colin, how very nice!’ she said. ‘We were hoping you would call before you went back to London. Miranda was sorry you didn’t go to the funeral, but Adrian said it was understandable, as you hardly knew the poor girl.’

‘I knew her quite well enough, thank you!’ Palgrave found himself saying.

‘Oh, dear, yes, I know! Well, do sit down and I’ll get the tea. I’m sorry Cupar isn’t here. He’s out sailing. I didn’t want to go, but I’m awfully glad of some company.’

‘I haven’t really come to inflict myself on you,’ said Palgrave. ‘I just wanted Adrian’s London address, if you have it.’

‘Yes, I do have it, but please don’t hurry away. You don’t look very well, Colin. You’re worried about that poor girl’s death, aren’t you? So are your friends, you know. They’re so worried that they are going to do something about it.’

‘What can anybody do? She’s dead; the coroner has given the only verdict which is possible under the circumstances, and there’s an end of it.’

‘Your friends don’t think so. I believe they’re wasting their time and that of the police, but they are determined to keep the case open.’

‘But, Morag, there simply isn’t a case, and when you call them my friends, well, I hope they are, but I’ve only known them since I came down here.’

‘Yes, they told me. You were a stranger and they took you in – literally, not metaphorically, of course.’

‘It was really Camilla’s doing, I think, although the invitation was supposed to come from them. I wish to goodness now that I’d refused it.’

‘Because this drowning business has happened? My thought is that it would have happened anyway. I think the verdict was right. The poor girl chose the wrong state of the tide, got carried out to sea on an undertow, couldn’t get back and was drowned. The incoming tide brought the body back to shore and somebody – that man who gave evidence at the inquest – found and reported it. It’s all simple enough and it’s the sort of thing that must happen every year during the holiday season on some part of the coast. People who ought to know better will do these daft things, and you must know, being one of them yourself, as I well remember, that there is nobody so arrogant as a strong swimmer.’

‘She wasn’t all that strong a swimmer,’ said Palgrave. ‘She wasn’t nearly as powerful as you, from what I remember, but she couldn’t have drowned that last night I was here. The tide was still coming in. Mind you, if later on she did bathe on an outgoing tide and got carried out to sea, I don’t think she could have fought her way back. I had the devil of a job myself that time I was fool enough to pit myself against the undertow. It was terribly alarming and one tended to panic, which certainly didn’t help matters.’

‘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.’

‘You said she sneaked back. Why would she need to do that? She could have told Adrian and Miranda that she had changed her plans. She wasn’t scared of them, was she?’

‘No, but it was ungrateful to push off with somebody else when they’d brought her here with them. She may have felt delicate about leaving.’

‘That doesn’t sound like her. I shouldn’t think she ever considered anybody but herself. If it had been known she was leaving, there would have been no need for you to go, would there?’

‘Oh, Morag! Of course I had to go. You, of all people, ought to realise that! You do realise it! You’ve admitted as much.’

‘Bygones have to be bygones, Colin.’

‘Oh, God! Don’t I know it! Well, I had better push off.’

‘No, do stay for a cup of tea. I’ll get it at once.’ She went out to the kitchen. Palgrave walked over to the window and gazed out over the marshes. It seemed to him that an age had passed since he had seen them first. He was still standing there when Morag came in with the tea-tray.

‘A penny for them!’ she said gaily as she set the tray down. Palgrave turned a startled face to her.

‘Good Lord! Don’t say that!’ he said.

‘Why ever not? Oh, I see! She said that to you at some time or another. I’m sorry, Colin. How was I to know? Were you a little bit fond of her?’

‘No, I was not! She was a thundering little nuisance. She latched on to me the minute she saw me.’

‘Poor old Colin! Milk and two lumps is it? – or have you gone in for slimming? I tried it once, but I only got depressed and I didn’t seem to lose any weight whatever. Colin, what’s the matter? Is it just the girl’s death, or is something else bothering you?’

‘There’s nothing, honestly, except that, as I told you, I had a visit from the police.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday, at my hotel. They seemed to think I was hiding something.’

‘And were you?’

‘For goodness’ sake stop barking up the wrong tree!’

‘It almost looks as though they are having second thoughts about the verdict at the inquest. Adrian and Miranda are sure there was something wrong about the girl’s death. They say she never would have bathed on an outgoing tide. They are certain of it, as I told you. It’s they who are barking up the wrong tree.’

‘The only thing which was wrong about that death was that it happened at all,’ said Palgrave. ‘If it wasn’t accidental and somebody contrived it, the place to look is into the girl’s past. I don’t want to say anything more against her than I’ve said already, but you know as well as I do that her sort are asking for trouble every minute of their waking lives.’

‘If she was only about twenty years old, she couldn’t have had all that much of a past, though, could she?’

‘Oh, they begin at eleven years old these days. They get away with it for a time, but they’re caught out in the end.’

‘But not necessarily murdered.’

‘Who’s talking about murder?’

‘I thought we were, because that’s what Adrian and Miranda think. I think they’re crazy.’

‘Oh, yes, they’re going much too far. As I say, she met some bloke – probably that day she pinched my car and went off with Adrian to Stack Ferry – and they met again by arrangement, probably more than once—’

‘And bathed together on an outgoing tide? Then why wasn’t the man drowned as well as the girl?’

‘That’s quite an easy one. It may have been a mere matter of muscle. I bathed on an outgoing tide once, as I told you, and got back all right. It was a fight, but I managed it and so, we may assume, did he. Or he may have stayed in shallow water and been in no particular danger. But what’s the use of speculating?’

‘No use at all. Well, if you don’t want any more tea, I’ll get you Adrian’s address and then perhaps you had better go.’

‘Thanks.’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘I – well, yes, I think I had better go.’

Morag laughed. She had always been much tougher than he, he reflected, except when he had hardened his heart and broken their engagement.