‘It’s clearing,’ Coombe’s voice said above the sizzle of bacon. ‘The local people think the weather’s apt to change at low tide. Nothing in it.’

‘It’s flat out, now.’

‘Yes,’ Coombe said. ‘Dead water.’

And by the time breakfast was over, so was the rain. Alleyn rang up his wife and said he’d be back for dinner. He put his suitcase in his car and as it was still too early to collect Miss Emily, decided, it being low tide, to walk over the causeway up Wally’s Way and thence by footpath to the hotel. He had an inclination to visit the Spring again. Coombe, who intended to fish, said he’d come as far as the jetty. Alleyn drove there and left him with the car. The return trip with Miss Emily and her luggage, would be by water.

When he reached the Island, the bell for nine o’clock service was ringing in Mr Carstairs’s church, back on the mainland.

Wally’s Way was littered with evidence of yesterday’s crowds: ice-cream wrappers, cigarette cartons and an occasional bottle. He wondered whose job it was to clear up.

It was a steep pull but he took it at a fair clip and the bell was still ringing when he reached the top.

He walked towards the enclosure and looked through the netting at the Spring.

On the shelf above it, open, and lying on its side was a large black umbrella.

It was one of those moments without time that strike at body and mind together with a single blow. He looked at the welling pool below the shelf. A black shape, half-inflated, pulsed and moved with the action of the Spring. Its wet surface glittered in the sun.

The bell had stopped and a lark sang furiously overhead.

He had to get through the turnstile.

The slot machine was enclosed in a wire cage, with a padlock which was open. He had no disc.

For a second or two, he thought of using a rock, if he could find one, or hurling his weight against the netted door, but he looked at the slot mechanism and with fingers that might have been handling ice, searched his pockets. A half-crown? No. A florin? As he pushed it down, he saw a printed notice that had been tied to the netting: ‘Warning,’ it was headed, and was signed: ‘Emily Pride.’ The florin jammed. He picked up a stone, hit it home and wrenched at the handle. There was a click and he was through and running to the Spring.

She was lying face-down in the pool, only A few inches below the water, her head almost at the lip of the waterfall.

Her sparse hair, swept forward, rippled and eddied in the stream. The gash in her scalp had stopped bleeding and gaped flaccidly.