The Kirilov Star (30 page)

‘Of course it matters. I want to know who she is.’

The inspector agreed to take her to the mortuary to see if she could identify the unknown woman. ‘She was in shorts and T-shirt, with no means of identification on her,’ he said. ‘We would have expected her to have a bag with a purse, cards and keys, things like that, but nothing was found on the initial search. It might have been washed overboard. We are searching the coastline for that and …’ He stopped to open the door and usher Lydia in, followed by Claudia, who had no intention of being left outside.

The young woman was not known to Lydia. She shook her head and they went back to the police station. ‘Where was the boat found?’ she asked as she prepared to leave, having told the inspector where she was staying.

‘Just off Prawle Point. You might learn a little more at the coastguard station there.’

Lydia was functioning on adrenalin and would not listen to Claudia’s suggestion she ought to go back to the hotel and catch up on lost sleep. ‘I’ll go when I know,’ she said, irritable with tiredness. Claudia gave in and followed her back to the car. They drove to the car park, as close to the point as they could, and scrambled over the rocks to the lookout station, on the cliffs high above the beach. They were met by one of the officers. Lydia identified herself and subjected him to the same barrage of questions.

‘They have hauled the boat out of the water for examination,’ he said. ‘There’s a huge hole in its side where it hit the rocks.’ He pointed at the jagged coastline as he spoke.

‘I can’t understand my husband letting that happen,’ Lydia said. From that vantage point they could see the
Merry Maid
, on its side on the beach, swarming with men in protective gear and life jackets. ‘My husband was in the navy all through the war and he’s been sailing ever since. He knows this coastline as well as anyone and he certainly knows how to read a chart. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Perhaps our examination will reveal the answer,’ he soothed.

‘And why wasn’t he on board? Knowing him, I am sure he would have stayed to try and avoid the rocks.’

‘It is possible he had already gone overboard before the boat hit the rocks,’ he said. ‘Are you familiar with the boat, Mrs Conway?’

‘I’ve been on board a few times but I’ve never sailed in her. I’m a dreadful sailor. It’s why my husband had to find others to crew for him. Sometimes our son or daughter would go with him, but since they have grown up and found their own interests …’ Her voice tailed off.

‘Why don’t you and your friend go and find something to eat?’ he suggested. ‘We can find you if we have any news. The Pigs Nose serves reasonable pub grub.’

They went to the strangely named public house and sat over a ploughman’s lunch for which neither had any appetite and then returned. There was no news. If Robert had been able to swim ashore, he would have done it long before now, she thought. The alternative was too dreadful to contemplate.

‘If …’ Lydia gulped. ‘If it’s a body you are looking for, how long will it be before it’s washed up?’

‘It depends on wind and tide. We have people watching the most likely places.’ He didn’t say that it might never
resurface, but she knew it. People did disappear without trace. Had it been intentional? A way of escape from a situation which had become unbearable? But surely he was too honourable to do that to her and the children.

There was nothing they could do and they returned to the hotel where Lydia telephoned Tatty. ‘I’ll get leave and come down,’ Tatty said.

‘No, darling, there’s nothing you can do and I don’t know where I’ll be. I’ll ring you again later.’ She did not want her daughter to join her, didn’t want her knowing about that unknown woman, though she supposed it would come out eventually. It could, of course, be an entirely innocent relationship, captain and crew, nothing more. Why did she find it so difficult to believe that?

Bob was easier to persuade. He was completely confident of his father’s skill and knowledge of the coast. ‘If he was washed overboard, he would swim away from the rocks,’ he said. ‘He’s probably landed in some cove further up the coast, miles from a telephone. Ring me back as soon as you know something. If you need me to come home, of course I’ll come at once and bring Tatty with me.’

She rang off and went up to her room where she fell onto the bed. She did not expect to sleep, but sheer exhaustion saw to it that she did, but even that was disturbed by a nightmare. She was in the sea and so were Robert and their children, all struggling to keep afloat. She could see the yacht bobbing up and down on the waves on its side and Robert was trying to herd them all towards it. But though they swam as hard as they could, the vessel seemed as far away as ever. It was the children she was worried about. They were only small and flagging badly. Robert left her to save them. She felt the water closing over her and woke up
with a start, gasping for breath. She had become tangled up in the bedclothes.

Sitting up, she switched on the bedside light. It was five o’clock in the morning. There was no sense in trying to go back to sleep. Every time she shut her eyes, she could see and feel the oily waves closing over her. She put the light out and went to sit by the open window. Dawn was breaking. Everywhere was bathed in a pink light. Not a breath of wind stirred the tree in the hotel garden with its picnic tables and benches, looking forlorn now that summer was gone.

‘Robert,’ she murmured, watching the sun come up over the rooftops. ‘Where are you? I want to say I’m truly sorry I couldn’t be the wife you wanted. But did you have to take such a nubile, young crew member on board?’ She got up stiffly from the hard chair, showered and dressed, then went along the corridor to knock on Claudia’s door. ‘Are you awake?’

They stayed in the area three days and still there was no sign of Robert. One question was answered. She was told the steering gear had broken on the
Merry Maid
and that was probably why Robert had not been able to steer away from the rocks with a strong wind and current carrying the yacht towards them. He might even have slipped into the water to try and see if he could mend it, leaving his crewmate on board. He could have been swept away and there was nothing the young lady could do to save the vessel. She had died from a blow to the head when the boat struck and knocked her against the bulwark. Traces of blood on the woodwork seemed to bear this out. Foul play had been discounted.

‘Have you found out who she was?’

‘Yes, we found her bag in one of the lockers under a sleeping bag. It was sodden, of course. Her name is Pamela Osborne. We have contacted her parents and there will be an inquest. I have no doubt the verdict will be accidental death. We cannot, of course, assume the captain’s demise.’

‘I understand.’

And so they waited. Mr and Mrs Osborne were coming down for the inquest of their daughter and Lydia did not want to meet them. ‘I’m going back to London,’ she told Claudia. ‘There may be some clues in the flat.’

The clues were everywhere: toiletries in the bathroom, clothes in the wardrobes, a copy of
Vogue
on the occasional table, high-heeled shoes kicked off under the kitchen table. Whoever she was, Pamela Osborne had been perfectly at home. Lydia felt sick. And Claudia was indignant.

‘The bugger!’ she said. ‘Who’d have believed it?’

Lydia refrained from saying ‘I would’.

‘Let’s go home,’ she said, resisting the temptation to sweep it all away, and leaving everything as it was. If Robert came back safe and well, she did not want him to think she had been snooping. But how to deal with it if he did?

Robert’s body was washed up two days later, found by
early-morning
swimmers in a sandy cove a few miles along the coast. Lydia made the long trip back to Devon to identify it. By now the media had hold of the story and there was no hushing up the fact that he had not been alone on the boat and they were making the most of it. ‘What happened on the
Merry Maid?
’ one headline asked. This was followed by a salacious story about Pamela Osborne, who had often been
seen in Robert’s company, both in London and in Ipswich where the boat was usually moored. She was a model who had had several other alliances. Robert’s naval career, his marriage to Lydia and the fact that she was a considerable heiress were all picked over and analysed. They asked Lydia for interviews, which she declined. Even so, there were pictures of her going into the inquest in Salcombe’s coroner’s court accompanied by her son and daughter. It was a dreadful time. In the glare of the spotlight, they could not even grieve properly.

The inquest did not last long. Boating experts testified that the steering gear had been faulty before the impact and that the injuries to Robert’s head were commensurate with his having been hit by the rudder as the boat veered in the current. It was assumed he had entered the water to try and mend the steering. A doctor testified that he thought the deceased had been knocked unconscious by the blow but not killed. His lungs were full of water and death was due to drowning. A verdict of accidental death was recorded.

It was over. Lydia felt numb, though she managed a smile of reassurance for Bob and Tatty when they asked anxiously if she were all right. They left the courtroom to be faced with a barrage of cameras and reporters. Questions were fired at them from all directions. Lydia had asked their solicitor to be present and he made a statement saying the family were relieved by the verdict and hoped they would now be allowed some privacy to grieve. Then they hurried to their car and Bob drove them home in the Bentley to arrange the funeral. Robert’s body would be conveyed home later in the day.

No one had much to say on the journey. Bob exchanged a few low words now and again with Claudia who had
insisted on coming and was sitting beside him. Tatty, in the back, was valiantly trying to hold back her tears. Lydia, holding her hand, sat immersed in tumbled thoughts; past, present and future all competed for her attention. It seemed an age since she had first gone to Devon, an age in which she had waited, throwing questions, demanding answers from the police and coastguard while she waited for news, not knowing when it would come or even if it would come at all. Everything went through her tortured mind: the manner of their first meeting, their marriage, having the children, through all of which Robert had supported her. It hadn’t all been bad, most of it had been good. It really hadn’t started to go wrong until after her father’s death. Had he been the one holding it together? Or was it when she realised Alex was alive? Had Robert known that? Or was it when Robert met Pamela? How long ago was that? How serious was their relationship? She would never know now.

After the watershed of the funeral what would she do with her life? She would have probate and the will to sort out and she would have to go to the flat and send Pamela’s things to Mr and Mrs Osborne. And then what? Go on doing what she had been doing for years: look after the house and garden, go to Women’s Institute meetings, serve on the committee for Upstone’s annual fete, continue as a governor of the infant school, support her favourite charities with coffee mornings, and work one day a week in the Oxfam shop. All that had once been fulfilling and had rarely involved Robert, so what was different?

Inevitably her thoughts turned to Alex. She had received a very short letter of condolence from him after he had read the news in the papers. It was formally worded, as if
he were afraid it would be read by others. She longed for him, longed for him in a way a child turns to a parent for comfort when hurt, knowing it would never be refused. But she could not go to him. She had not been able to go to him again while Robert was alive, still less could she go now he was dead. It made her betrayal seem infinitely worse.

The funeral at Upstone church was well attended. Most of the congregation were Upstone people and naval and yachting friends who had known Robert, but there was a scattering of people who had read about the death and inquest in the papers and were curious to see how the widow handled herself.

Lydia conducted herself with quiet dignity. She was calm, almost numb, as she went through the ritual of the service and the interment. The last time something like it had happened was for her father’s funeral and there had been a ghost present. She glanced towards the yew. There was no one there. Turning back to the grave, she laid a single white rose from the Upstone Hall gardens on the coffin as it was lowered. ‘Goodbye, Robert,’ she murmured. ‘You were the best of husbands. Rest in peace and love.’ It was what she had written on the card on her wreath.

She stood as others filed past, several of them stooping to pick up a handful of soil and sprinkle it on the coffin, and then, half supporting, half being supported by Tatty, she walked back to the car.

Alex had decided it was best to stay away, although, as a friend of Robert’s, it would not have been out of place for him to go. He feared upsetting Lydia even more than she must be upset already. He had read the gossip and his
heart went out to her. He would have liked nothing better than to go and help her endure it, but knew it would be inappropriate and the media would have a field day. He threw himself into a frenzy of work, cleaning out the pig pens until they were almost as pristine as the bathroom in the house. He built two new hen coops and hoed the rows between the vegetables. The Brussels sprouts were ready for picking and he would have to get in some casual labour to help with that.

When he could not find anything more to do, he set off across the heath with his dog at his heels and sat for an hour or two in the pub. He had brought Lydia here on that last weekend. They had been happy in their way, though speaking of the future had been taboo. How long before he saw her again? Could he go to her at some time when everything had settled down, or must he wait until she came to him? Waiting would be almost unbearable, but going to Upstone only to be turned away would be worse.

The landlord called time. He got up and went home, followed by the faithful Patch.