Mrs Dover turned to look at him. Her eyes were wide with fright. She ignored the handkerchief with its two small spots of blood which her better half was waving reproachfully at her.
‘Wilf,’ she choked, ‘I’ve just seen a man jump over that cliff.’
‘Rubbish!’ Dover snorted automatically, and dabbed hopefully at his nose again.
‘But I did! He deliberately climbed up over that fence and jumped! I saw him!’
‘So what?’ said Dover irritably.
‘But, that’s Cully Point! It’s a sheer drop there, right down into the sea. He’ll be drowned, Wilf!’
‘Not if the tide’s out,’ said Dover, rarely able to resist scoring a point, however feeble.
‘If the tide’s out he’ll be smashed to pieces on those rocks.’ Mrs Dover shivered. She had a vivid imagination. ‘ Oh, Wilf, I do wish you’d go and look.’
‘It’s raining cats and dogs,’ protested Dover. ‘I’ve got soaked once today.’
‘Wilf, there’s a man lying down there, dead or dying.’
Dover, having decided that he wasn’t going to bleed to death and so taking a more optimistic view, said, ‘You’ve been imagining things. I didn’t see anybody.’
‘Well, I did,’ snapped Mrs Dover tartly. ‘And if you look over there by that waste-paper bin you can see his bicycle. That’s not my imagination, is it?’
Somewhat disgruntled Dover followed the line of his wife’s pointing finger. There was indeed a bicycle propped up against the fence. ‘Probably been there for weeks,’ he muttered.
‘Wilf!’ Mrs Dover’s voice rose to a near scream. ‘ Will you go and look?’
With much grumbling and moaning Dover eventually prised himself out of the car. The rain beat relentlessly down on him and the wind tore at his overcoat as he made his way across the road to the small lay-by which had been provided for motorists who wished to stop and enjoy the chilling splendours of Cully Point. He walked over to the bicycle. As he approached a gust of wind caught it and smashed it over on to its side. Dover clutched at his bowler hat and peered glumly at the bicycle. Even he could tell that it hadn’t been standing out in that rain for more than a matter of minutes. He glanced back at the car. He could see his wife’s white face watching him through the window.
With a curse he lumbered over to the fence itself and, hanging on grimly to a stout post, peered down into the abyss below.
Cully Point from any angle was an impressive sight. A bare, over-hanging cliff, it towered four hundred and thirty-two feet above the swirling churning sea beneath. And Dover was very relieved to see the swirling churning sea. It was high tide and the jagged rocks at the foot of the Point were decently covered with several feet of grey foaming water.
Dover nearly jumped out of his skin as his wife appeared suddenly and grabbed his arm. She looked down too.
‘Can you see anything?’ she whispered.
‘No,’ said Dover. ‘Thank God!’
‘He’ll have been swept out to sea for miles by now,’ said Mrs Dover in an awe-struck voice. ‘They never recover the bodies, not when it’s high tide and a rough sea like this.’
‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about, it,’ observed Dover grimly.
‘Aunt George used to live in Wallerton – she was Uncle George’s wife, you know. We always used to call her Aunt George; funny really when you come to think about it. I often used to stav with her when I was a girl. I expect it was all over very quickly, don’t you, Wilf? He wouldn’t last long in a sea like that.’
‘If he ever went in it,’ said Dover sourly.
‘But I saw him! It was as clear as daylight.’ Mrs Dover emitted a jubilant squeak, ‘Look at that down there! What is it? It looks like a cap to me.’
It looked like a cap to Dover, but he would rather have died than admit it. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he lied.
‘Yes, you can! Look there; banging up against the side of the cliff. Yes, look, it is a cap! Dark blue. Or black. I can see the peak. Look, there it is, Wilf! Oh – it’s gone.’
Yet another wave surged over the dark sodden object and sucked it down into the whirlpool.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Dover resolutely and truthfully. ‘Anyhow, come on! I’m not standing out here in this gale catching my death any longer. There’s nothing we can do.’
He beat his wife back to the shelter of the Mini by a good five yards.
‘What shall we do now, Wilf?’ asked Mrs Dover when she was once more in the driving seat. All the car windows were steamed up.
‘Get a ruddy move on,’ rumbled Dover. ‘It’ll be midnight before we get to Filbury at this rate – what with your driving and punctures and one thing and another. Still,’ he sighed with exasperation, ‘I suppose it’s not far short of a miracle that we’ve got as far as we have.’
‘But we’ll have to report this suicide, Wilf,’ said Mrs Dover as she pressed the starter. The car was still in gear and Dover took another dive into the windscreen. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Wilf. Seeing that man – it’s upset me a bit.’
Through bruised lips Chief Inspector Dover told his wife precisely what he thought of her, her deceased aunt, the inclement weather, the Mini-Minor, her driving and her thoughtless habit of watching complete strangers commit suicide.
‘And now,’ he concluded, ‘we are going to Filbury. Straight to Filbury. I’ll be down with pneumonia if I don’t get these wet things off.’
His wife looked at him apprehensively. ‘We must go to the police. Wilf,’ she said, timid but stubborn.
Dover told her what she could do with the police, too. ‘And if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times, keep
