The Mudflats of the Dead

‘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