“Well, not open—unlocked, I mean. Anyway, it wasn’t, so I knocked a few times and waited about a while but nobody came so I went to the big door and rang the bell. Still nobody answered. I couldn’t hear a sound inside and I thought, funny, because Mrs Palgrove hadn’t said anything the day before about going away, which she would have done, of course. Well, I thought I’d better give them a few minutes just in case, so I started to walk about a bit outside and look at the flowers. Of course it was then I...I...”
Mrs George felt instinctively for her apron. Tears had started afresh from her already reddened eyes. She rubbed them with the back of her hand which she then pressed to her mouth.
Purbright put an arm round her shoulders and led her to a chair by the foot of the stairs. Love and Malley left, at a sign from the inspector, to join their colleagues in the garden.
“Yes, Mrs George?”
She raised a face lined and puffy with distress. “Yes...well...I mean, there she was. Sort of doubled over the wall of that well thing. Half of her outside, the other half inside. Right in the water. Oh, arms, shoulders, head— right under. And them fishes...swimming about round her hair. In and out...”
Mrs George looked down at her skirt and pressed her knuckles into it. She swayed slightly backward and forward.
“Did you pull her out of the water?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t seem able to manage it. She’s quite a big woman, you know.”
“It was very sensible of you to telephone.”
“I tried to get her out. I tried all ways. It was no good though. I mean, people are a lot heavier than they look, aren’t they, especially when they’re lying awkward. Well, anyway, I just couldn’t. So I ran down to the phone at the corner. It seemed best, I mean...”
“Of course. By the way, how did you get into the house eventually?”
“Get in?”
“You did open the door to us.”
“Yes. One of the policemen who came found a window open and he got through. He said it would be all right.”
“I suppose Mr Palgrove is away from home, is he?”
“I don’t know. I mean, he’s not here now and it’s not usual for him to leave for business until, oh, an hour or more after I arrive. The other policemen wanted to know and I told them the same. They’d most likely know at his office. I mean, you could try his office.”
“I could, couldn’t I. All right, Mrs George, there’s no reason why you should stay any longer. You’ve been most patient.”
He helped her to her feet, then opened the door. As she trotted dumpily past him, she gave a nervous little smile of farewell followed by a brief, fearful glance towards the distant policemen grouped about a shrouded shape in the grass.
“Dead for hours,” Love announced when Purbright came up. He drew back the blanket that Harper had brought from the house.
The inspector looked down at the big vacuous face in which the eyes were just two dark dots. The wet hair, close-clinging as a cap but with a few unravelled strands wandering down over forehead and cheek, seemed too sparse, too lank, to be a woman’s. This dissolution of sexual identity, furthered by the laxity of the cheeks and the jaw, was made more shocking still by the survival of the woman’s last application of lipstick and eye shadow, now garish daubs amidst the water-bleached flesh.
“How long do you think the doctor will be?”
Harper looked at his watch. “Any time now, sir. It’s Doctor Fergusson from the General. We couldn’t get hold of Reynolds.”
“You’ve tried to contact the husband?”
The uniformed man, Fairclough, coughed and gave Harper a glance before replying.
“We haven’t had much luck, sir. There was only the cleaner here when we arrived and she seemed to think he was away from home. I rang his firm, but...”
“That’s Can-flax, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. I rang them straight away, but he wasn’t there. They said he doesn’t usually turn up before ten. I called a bit later when his secretary had come in and she said he’d arranged to go to Leicester last night.”
“When does she expect him back?”
“Some time this morning, she thinks.”
“All right. Well, at least we know why he isn’t here. Look, Mr Harper, you’d better get over to Can-flax and wait around in case Palgrove goes straight to his office. Break things to him gently and tell him there’ll be somebody here waiting.”
Sergeant Love was going slowly round the well, examining it. He tried to turn the crank. It was fixed, make- believe like the bucket and the few links of chain and all the rest.
“What a swizz!” said Love. Fairclough eyed him with disapproval.
“You didn’t think it was real, did you, Sid?” Purbright perched himself carefully on the edge of the wall and peered into the water. The fish, agitated, crossed and recrossed in sudden darts and swoops.
“How do you think it happened?” Purbright asked.
“She must have leaned too far over, I suppose.” Love was still suffering disenchantment.
