Troy thought with horror: ‘They’re towing her. It’s Our Mutual Friend again. Through the detergent foam. They’ll lift her out, dripping foam, and put her on a stretcher and into an ambulance and drive her away. There’ll be an autopsy and an inquest and I’ll have to say what I saw and, please God, Rory will be back.’

The Zodiac trembled. Trees and blue sky with a wisp of cloud, moved across the porthole. For a minute or so they were under way and then she felt the slight familiar shock when the craft came up to her mooring.

Miss Hewson opened the door and looked in. She held a little bottle rather coyly between thumb and forefinger and put her head on one side like her brother.

‘Wide awake?’ she said. ‘I guess so. Now, look what I’ve brought!’

She tiptoed the one short pace between the door and the bunk and stooped. Her face really was like a bun, Troy thought, with currants for eyes and holes for nostrils and a bit of candy-peel for a mouth. She shrank back a little from Miss Hewson’s face.

‘I just knew how you’d be. All keyed-up like nobody’s business. And I brought you my Trankwitones. You needn’t feel any hesitation about using them, dear. They’re recommended by pretty well every darn’ doctor in the States and they just act—’

The voice droned on. Miss Hewson was pouring water into Troy’s glass.

‘Miss Hewson, you’re terribly kind but I don’t need anything like that. Really. I’m perfectly all right now and very much ashamed of myself.’

‘Now, listen dear—’

‘No, truly. Thank you very much but I’d rather not.’

‘You know something? Mama’s going to get real tough with baby—’

‘But, Miss Hewson, I promise you I don’t want—’

‘May I come in?’ said Dr Natouche.

Miss Hewson turned sharply and for a moment they faced each other.

‘I think,’ he said, and it was the first time Troy had heard him speak to her, ‘that Mrs Alleyn is in no need of sedation, Miss Hewson.’

‘Well, I’m surely not aiming—I just thought if she could get a little sleep—I—’

‘That was very kind but there is no necessity for sedation.’

‘Well—I certainly wouldn’t want to—’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. If I may just have a word with my patient.’

‘Your patient! Pardon me. I was not aware—well, pardon me, Doctor,’ said Miss Hewson with a spurt of venom in her voice and slammed the door on her exit.

Troy said hurriedly: ‘I want to talk to you. It’s about what we discussed before. About Miss Rickerby-Carrick. Dr Natouche, have you seen—’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They asked me to make an examination—a very superficial examination, of course.’