Part 11 (1/2)

Cool b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Thomas thought, who had missed the pallor, the flush, and heard only the voice - very level.

”What makes you think,” he asked gently, ”that the poor little gel was drowned?”

Murphy was beginning to feel. He kicked at some groundsel at the base of the wall and then gouged it out with the toe of his boot. They must have capsized it - the b.l.o.o.d.y inefficient yobs. He should have stopped them taking it out to sea. He should have gone over to them and ripped their b.a.l.l.s off.

The Welsh policeman was looking at him pretty hard. The normal affinity between the Welsh and the Irish thinned in the gaze. Murphy, trying to regain some sort of emotional equilibrium, said the first thing that came into his head.

”Groundsel,” he said, ”for Miss Sheldon-Smythe's budgerigars.”

”Oh?” said Thomas, surprised.

Murphy picked up a couple of roots of it, shook off the soil, and put the groundsel on the wall beside him. Dirty finger-nails, Bridget had said. There were thick smears of soil over his halfmoons. Her nails were like filberts -bright red with polish. His blood had been wiped off by her soft white finger. When they had made love. He liked the old-fas.h.i.+oned way of describing it. Love. A smell of burnt gorse. A white towel.

Thomas joined him on the wall. ”Why drowned?” he asked again.

'They went in a boat, didn't they?” asked Murphy.

”I don't know. Did you see them going in a boat?”

”They were getting into a boat.”

”You didn't watch while they went out to sea?”

”No.” He had been too crazy with rage. He had a.s.sumed they had gone out to sea.

”Are you trying to tell me, sorr,” he asked, still on the surface commendably calm and exceedingly polite, ”that she was not drowned?”

Thomas picked up a piece of the groundsel. Did birds eat this stuff? ”Oh, yes,” he said, ”she was drowned all right - poor little gel. By that I mean the water got into her lungs. But she might have been knocked unconscious before it did, if you see what I mean.”

”You mean,” Murphy was aghast, ”that she was murdered?” ”Oh, no,” Thomas soothed. ”Oh, no, no, no. Not necessarily - not necessarily at all. She was found in a gully under water. The gra.s.s on the clifftop is very slippy. She might have got too close to the edge. On her face she fell. Hair between two rocks. Got held there. Lots of possibilities, of course. How many yachtsmen did you see?”

Murphy didn't hear the question. His head felt like a witch's cauldron. It boiled, it bubbled, it seethed, it threw up obscene sc.r.a.ps of carrion. And then it calmed down.

Thomas was repeating the question.

”I don't know, sorr - two, mebbe three.”

”What were they doing?”

”One of the sods had his arm around Bridget.”

This time Thomas skimmed off some of the emotion from the top of the cauldron and gave it a good hard look. Oh, well, it wasn't surprising. It occurred to him that Murphy might be the best choice to make the identification -- a preliminary identification - before her parents were informed. They would identify her officially, of course. Mother Benedicta had offered to go along. She could still go, and sit in the car: if it turned out not to be Bridget she wouldn't be subjected to an unnecessary ordeal. The enquiry as from now would be pushed up the line a bit. As sergeant he hadn't all that much authority.

He put his thoughts to Murphy. ”If my superiors okay it -- and if Mother Benedicta agrees -- would you be willing to go to the mortuary to identify her?”

Yes, Murphy said, he would be willing. He would need to change his suit. He had a navy-blue serge one, would that do?

No need for a chapel suit, Thomas told him, in these circ.u.mstances. Just a clean pair of boots, maybe, and trousers with no mud on them.

Murphy went into his cottage to get himself ready just in case. He ran the hot tap in the sink but the water wasn't hot enough so he put it in the kettle to boil. When it boiled he couldn't remember what it was boiling for. He raised the kettle high and poured it away. It steamed around his face and got into his eyes. When he and Bridget had bathed each other it had taken four kettlesful to make the water in the tin bath warmer than tepid. She had made fun of his sulphur soap.