‘Of course there’s a body!’ Bess cut in. ‘Mr Shaw saw it.’
‘What the old man saw is more likely to be an animal than a human. But if it is a man’s body, we won’t know who it is until he’s been identified.’
‘I know it’s him, Frank. Don’t ask me how, but I’ve got this horrible, excited, feeling in my stomach. Anyway, who else could it be?’ He was probably killed by one of his fascist cronies and dumped in our lake to take the attention away from Sir Gerald Hawksley.’
‘Or to make it look as if one of us had killed him.’
‘What if Katherine Hawksley killed him on New Year’s Eve? Good on her if she did,’ Bess said, a congratulatory tone to her voice.
‘No one killed him on New Year’s Eve--’ Frank stopped short of telling Bess why. Instead he said, ‘There were too many people about after the New Year party, someone would have seen something.’ He looked up at the clock. ‘You call McGann. I’d better get down to the lake before more anglers arrive.’
Bess picked up the telephone. Her stomach churned with distasteful curiosity.
As he walked down the drive, Frank came to a decision. If it was Sutherland’s body in the lake, he wouldn’t tell the police Sutherland was alive on January 2nd. If he did, they’d want to know how he knew. And if he told them Sutherland had been blackmailing him, and that the last letter he received was on the second, they would see that as a motive for killing him.
Frank took a deep breath as he neared the place where the old angler said he’d seen the body, and decided that, as he’d got away without telling Bess for almost three months, he wasn’t going to tell her now.
Holding onto the trunk of a silver birch sapling, Frank inched his way down the slippery bank. It was a man’s body, sure enough, but he couldn’t tell whether it was Sutherland or not. His head was turned sideways and Frank could only see the left side of the man’s face. He was unrecognisable. His features looked grotesque with bloating.
Revulsion formed a hard lump in Frank’s stomach. It rose to the back of his throat. He thought he would be sick and turned his gaze away. At that moment, something at the water’s edge, white, and tangled in the roots of a clump of reeds, caught his eye. It was the man’s right hand, and on it was a signet ring. Bringing to mind the black and red crest on the thick gold band when he hit Sutherland on New Year’s Eve, Frank sighed heavily. His worst fears were confirmed. The man floating in the lake was David Sutherland.
The sound of a car in the distance broke into Frank’s thoughts. He looked up. ‘Bess?’ he gasped, ‘what are you doing here?’ Frank scrambled up the bank to his wife who, as if in a dream, stood on the top of the slope staring at Sutherland’s prostrate body. ‘Bess?’ Frank took her arm and tried to walk her away from the horrific scene, but she stood firm.
‘I was right, Frank, it is Sutherland,’ she said, her expression blank, her voice emotionless.
‘Yes, love,’ Frank whispered. He looked towards Mysterton Lane. Sergeant McGann’s black Wolseley was rounding the bend to the drive. ‘Come on, sweetheart. The police are here. Let me take you back to the hotel.’ Holding Bess’s arm with one hand, Frank waved down the police car with the other. ‘If you keep looking at his body it will only upset you, Bess. Come on, love.’
As the Wolseley pulled up, Bess yanked her arm free of her husband’s grip. ‘I want to look at him. I want to be sure that monster will never hurt anyone again,’ she cried, and slumped to her knees.
‘He won’t, my darling. He’ll never hurt anyone again.’ Seeing Sergeant McGann and the constable approaching, Frank lifted Bess’s chin and leant forward until his eyes were level with hers. ‘The police are here, Bess. We must get out of their way, so they can do their job.’
Bess nodded. ‘Let’s go home.’ Frank helped her to her feet and without a backward glance husband and wife, arms around each other, walked back to the hotel.
‘Mr Shaw is in the smoking lounge,’ Maeve told them as soon as they were through the door. ‘I got one of the waitresses to take him another cup of tea and a slice of Battenberg. When she left he was reading the newspaper.’
‘That’s good. Thank you, Maeve. When you have time, would you find the names and addresses of people who stayed here from New Year’s Eve to--?’
‘Don’t worry about that now, Bess,’ Frank said. ‘You look all in. Why don’t you go up and have a lie down?’
‘I don’t want to lie down. Besides, I need to be here. The police are bound to want to talk to us. So,’ she said, with more than a little exasperation in her voice, ‘would you do as I ask, Maeve? Find the names and addresses, and telephone numbers if they have them, of all the guests who have stayed here since we opened and bring them to me in the office?’ She looked at Frank. ‘I want to be prepared.’ Turning back to Maeve: ‘I hope the police will have taken the body away by the time today’s guests arrive. How many are booked in, and what time are we expecting them?’
‘Six. Two double rooms and two singles. Four are booked in for tea and dinner, two for just dinner - both parties arriving this afternoon.’
‘Let’s hope it’s later rather than earlier this afternoon,’ Bess said, going into the office.
‘I’ll go back down there,’ Frank said. ‘I’ll try and find out how long the police will be here.’
‘Where’s my husband?’ Bess asked,
