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She grew agitated, her skin icy. ‘Oh, no. No, I don’t want to see her.’ See a girl not much younger than herself, drowned, dead. Her stomach clenched in sickness. ‘Can’t I wait here?’
‘I’m sorry, Miss, I’m afraid they would want you to be there, in person, whether or not you agree to identify someone.’
Her legs were wobbly, she could scarcely walk, and the sergeant suddenly put a protective, supportive arm around her.
‘You’ll be all right, Miss. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’
Out of the corner of her eye she caught the sideways glance of the policewoman, a cool, strangely cynical look which bothered her, because what did it mean? Did the other woman think she was play-acting to get this male sympathy? Or did she think the sergeant was enjoying himself in this traditional, this age-old way, a man comforting a woman by holding her, talking softly to her.
The passages of the building flickered by in a strangely surreal way. She had rarely visited the private flat, the way to it from the office was circuitous and bewildering. It seemed to take ages to get there.
‘Wait here, Miss,’ the sergeant said at the flat’s front door. ‘Collins will stay with you.’
The policewoman gave her a polite smile, yet Miranda got the impression she was under observation, that WPC Collins was there to stop her bolting. Maybe she was imagining it, yet she distinctly felt as if they suspected her of something.
Did they think she was lying? But what about? Surely they didn’t suspect she, herself, had drowned the girl? The idea gave her a jolt; she felt nervous, as if she were actually guilty of something.
The sergeant reappeared and now his face was very different. He looked at her in a worrying way, and Miranda felt panic beating in her throat. Why was he looking at her like that?
‘Come in now, please, Miss,’ he said with the same outward courtesy, yet with frost on every syllable.
She was too disturbed to argue. She went into the flat and found herself facing another handful of policemen who all watched her, narrow-eyed and with distinct hostility.
One of them said curtly, ‘Inspector Baines, Miss Grey. You reported a death, a possible murder. You claimed you had heard someone being drowned in the bathroom of this flat.’
She nodded, swallowing convulsively.
He waved a hand towards the bathroom door. ‘Please look for yourself, Miss.’
Something was wrong. But what could it be? For a second she hesitated, still nervous, yet knew she was going to have to obey him. His face was too unyielding. She walked slowly forward and stood in the doorway, her eyes moving at once to the bath.
It was empty.
The smooth cream-coloured bath was spotless, as dry as a bone, gave no sign of having been used recently. There were no splash marks on the walls or on the carpet. The towels on the heated rail were clean, pristine, untouched. The bathroom was immaculate, as clean as a whistle.
She looked at the inspector. ‘I don’t understand. I tell you, I heard them in here, heard splashing, flailing about. I wasn’t imagining it. He drowned the girl in this bath.’
‘Then where is the body?’ Inspector Baines curtly asked, and she had no answer, simply stared blankly at him.
They took her back to the police station where she was interviewed for hours by a thin detective in a dark blue suit. When he switched on the tape machine he said into it, in a calm, quiet voice, ‘Present, Sergeant Neil Maddrell,’ and she noted his name, liking the tone he used.
He was perfectly pleasant, but the way he watched her, spoke to her, told her that he suspected her to be crazy or malicious, or both.
Her statement was typed; after reading it she signed it, and then she had to sit in a waiting room for another couple of hours. At last she had another interview with Sergeant Neil Maddrell.
His voice was gentler, almost soothing. ‘Your husband, Mrs Grey, drowned three years ago – that is correct, isn’t it?’
She nodded.
‘And following on that, you spent some months in hospital, in a psychiatric department. During that time you had frequent hallucinations about people drowning.’
She saw immediately what he was s
uggesting. ‘Yes, but I was ill then. I’m OK now. I’ve been better for years. What are you trying to imply? That I imagined what happened today? That I made it all up?’
‘Did you?’
‘No! It happened. I tell you, I heard the girl drowning!’ Her voice rose, out of control, shaky. She swallowed, hating the sound of herself, got up, blundering against the table, barking her shins. ‘I want to go home!’
