She should have taken off Charity’s heavy twill trousers, they were dragging her down. It was no good. Geoff must have been mistaken. There was no one here. She was going to drown, in this freezing pool, for nothing.

Unless …? He must be on the bottom. But where was that? She’d lost all sense of direction; she could hardly think straight. She’d lost all feeling in her feet and her hands. How much longer could she stay afloat? Her limbs were lead.

Her lungs were hurting now, fit to bursting and she was close to crying huge, hysterical tears.

She took the biggest breath she could manage and dived, pushing against the walls of water and finally feeling the rough bottom of the pool.

As she was about to kick off with her feet and surface, her hand touched something, and she grabbed it. It was a sleeve or a cuff.

She’d got him! She dragged him up, up, up in a seemingly never-ending struggle to reach air. Then she burst out onto the surface and gasped and gasped, choking, coughing and bobbing down under the water again.

Someone was in the water, pulling her to the shallow end, arms were lifting her out. Her arm hit the hard stone edge of the pool and she was coughing up water.

There were shouts from the Hall and the sounds of people coming over the grass towards them. Maggie lay in a sopping heap on the side of the pool. Had she got him? Was Rudi safe? She didn’t know … and then, she didn’t care. She was exhausted, she had nothing left to give. She felt like she was waiting to die.

Chapter 42

Joseph stood at the window in the vestibule, watching Brummie load Sarah’s suitcases into the car.

‘She’s been given her marching orders then?’ a soft voice said.

It was Gwen. Joseph had been so deep in thought about everything that had happened in the last couple of days, he hadn’t heard her approach.

They stood side by side and watched as Brummie opened the door and Sarah slid into the back seat. Joseph had already said goodbye. He wouldn’t be waving her off from the front door; it was hardly what she deserved.

‘What on earth happened?’ Gwen asked. ‘There are twenty different versions going around the kitchen.’

Joseph explained how, the night before last, Rudi had woken and wandered out into the garden. Sarah – drinking with Jack in the gatehouse – was completely unaware that her charge was on the loose. Mr Braithwaite, who was smoking out on the terrace, saw Rudi on the lawn, heard the fateful splash, failed to reach him in the pool and ran inside for help.