Longshot. Part 51

'Angie?'

'Mm.'

'Not bad,' he said. 'Brown hair. Thin figure, small t.i.ts, round bottom. She agonised about having breast implants. I told her to forget b.l.o.o.d.y implants, what would her babies think? That turned on the taps, I'll tell you. She bawled for ages. She wasn't much fun, old Angie, but effing good on a mattress.'

What an epitaph, I thought. Chisel it in stone.

Sam looked out over the flooding river and breathed in the damp smell of the morning as if testing wine for bouquet, and I thought that he lived through his senses to a much greater degree than I did and was intensely alive in his direct approach to s.e.x and his disregard of danger.

He said cheerfully, as if shaking off murder as a pa.s.sing inconvenience, 'Are you going to this do of Tremayne's tonight?'

'Yes. Are you?'

He grinned. 'Are you kidding? I'd be shot if I wasn't there to cheer. And anyway,' he shrugged as if to disclaim sentiment, 'the old b.u.g.g.e.r deserves it. He's not all bad, you know.'

'I'll see you there, then,' I said, agreeing with him.

'If I don't break my neck.' It was flippantly said, but an insurance against fate, like crossed fingers. 'I'd better tell this sodding policeman where the main electric switch is. I've got it rigged so no one can find it but me, as I don't want people being able to walk in here after dark and turn the lights on. Inviting vandalism, that is. When the force have finished here, they can turn the electric off.'

He bounced off towards Doone, who was writing in his notebook, and they were walking together to the big boatshed as I drove away.

Even after having done the week's shopping en route, I was back at Sh.e.l.lerton House as promised in good time for Tremayne to drive his Volvo to Newbury races. He had sent three runners off in the horse-box and was taking Mackie to a.s.sist, leaving me to my slowly growing first chapter in the dining-room.

When they'd gone Dee-Dee came in, as she often did now, to drink coffee over the sorted clippings.

I said, 'I hope Tremayne won't mind my taking all these with me when I go home.'

'Home-' Dee-Dee smiled. 'He doesn't want you to go home, didn't you know? He wants you to write the whole book here. Any day now he'll probably make you an offer you can't refuse.'

'I came for a month. That's what he said.'

'He didn't know you then.' She took a few mouthfuls of coffee. 'He wants you for Gareth, I think.'

That made sense, I thought; and I wasn't sure which I would choose, to go or to stay, if Dee-Dee was right.

When she'd returned to the office I tried to get on with the writing but couldn't concentrate. The trap in Sam's boathouse kept intruding and so did Angela Brickell; the cold threat of khaki water that could rush into aching lungs to bring oblivion and the earthy girl who'd been claimed back by the earth, eaten clean by earth creatures, become earth-digested dust.

Under the day-to-day surface of ordinary life in Sh.e.l.lerton the fish of murder swam like a shark, silent, unknown, growing new teeth. I hoped Doone would net him soon, but I hadn't much faith.

Fiona telephoned during the afternoon to say mat she'd brought Harry home and he wanted to see me, so with a sigh but little reluctance I abandoned the empty page and walked down to the village.

Fiona hugged me as a long-lost brother and said Harry still couldn't be quite clear in his mind as he was saying now that he remembered drowning. However could one remember drowning?

'Quite hard to forget, I should think.'

'But he didn't drown!'

'He came close.'

She led me into the pink-and-green chintzy sitting-room where Harry, pale with blue shadows below the eyes, sat in an armchair with his bandaged leg elevated on a large upholstered footstool.

'h.e.l.lo,' he said, raising a phantom smile. 'Do you know a cure for nightmares?'

'I have them awake,' I said.

'Dear G.o.d.' He swallowed. 'What's true, and what isn't?'

'What you remember is true.'

'Drowning?'

'Mm.'

'So I'm not mad.'

'No. Lucky.'

'I told you,' he said to Fiona. 'I tried not to breathe, but in the end I just did. I didn't mean to. Couldn't help it.'

'No one can,' I said.

'Sit down,' Fiona said to me, kissing Harry's head. 'What's lucky is that Harry had the sense to take you with him. And what's more, everyone's apologising all over the place except for one vile journalist who says it's possible a misguided vigilante thought getting rid of Harry the only path to real justice, and I want Harry to sue him, it's truly vicious.'

'I can't be bothered,' Harry said in his easy-going way. 'Doone was quite nice to me! That's enough.'

'How's the leg?' I asked.

'Lousy. Weighs a couple of tons. Still, no gangrene as yet.'

He meant it as a joke but Fiona looked alarmed.

'Darling,' he said placatingly, 'I'm bloated with antibiotics, punctured with teta.n.u.s jabs and immunised against cholera, yellow-spotted mountain fever and athlete's foot. I have it on good authority that I'm likely to live. How about a stiff whisky?'

'No. It'll curdle the drugs.'

'For John, then.'

I shook my head.

'Take Cinderella to the ball,' he said.

'What?'

'Fiona to Tremayne's party. You're going, aren't you?'

I nodded.

'I'm not leaving you,' Fiona protested.