‘The marriage was not a happy one. At any rate, Philip Nyman wasn’t happy. Iris was a typically arrogant rich girl who expected always to have her own way. Besides, the money and the house and the car were all hers. He remained a salesman. Then, a year or so ago, he fell in love with a cousin of Iris, a girl called Anna Ashby. Apparently, Iris knew nothing about this, and her father certainly didn’t.’

‘Then how can you . . .?’ Racic interrupted.

‘These affairs are always known to someone, Ivo. One of Anna’s friends has made a statement to Scotland Yard.’ Wexford paused and drank some of his wine. ‘That’s the background,’ he said. ‘Now for what happened a month or so ago.

‘The Nymans had arranged to motor down as usual to the south of France, but this time to cross northern Italy and spend a week or ten days here on the Dalmatian coast. Anna Ashby had planned to spend part of the summer with friends in Greece so, at Iris’s invitation, she was to accompany the Nymans as far as Dubrovnik where she would stay a few days with them, then go on by air to Athens.

‘In Dubrovnik, after the three of them had been there a few days, Iris got hold of the idea of bathing off Vrapci. Perhaps she wanted to bathe in the nude, perhaps she had already been on the “topless” beach at St Tropez. I don’t know. Philip Nyman has admitted nothing of this. Up until the time I left, he was still insisting that his wife had returned to England with him.’

‘It was your idea, then,’ put in Racic, ‘that this poor woman’s body was concealed on the isle of sparrows?’

‘It was a guess,’ said Wexford. ‘I overheard some words, I was later told a lie. I’m a policeman. Whether they went to Vrapci on Saturday, June i8th, or Sunday, June 19th, I can’t tell you. Suffice that they did go – in that inflatable dinghy of theirs. The three of them went but only two came back, Nyman and Anna Ashby.’

‘They killed Mrs Nyman?’

Wexford looked thoughtful. ‘I think so, certainly. Of course there’s a possibility that she drowned, that it was an accident. But in that case wouldn’t any normal husband have immediately informed the proper authority? If he had recovered the body, wouldn’t he have brought it back with him? We’re awaiting the results of the post-mortem, but even if that shows no wounds or bruises on the body, even if the lungs are full of water, I should be very surprised to learn that Nyman and, or, Anna hadn’t hastened her death or watched her drown.’

Both were silent for a moment, Racic nodding slowly as he digested what Wexford had told him. Then he got up and fetched from the house a candelabrum, but thinking better of it, switched on an electric lamp attached to the wall.

‘Any light will attract the insects, but there at least they will not trouble us. So it was this Anna Ashby who came to Mirna, posing as Mrs Nyman?’