He didn’t answer me. ‘Go back to the beginning. You entered the room – what then?’

I put my hand to my forehead. As I touched it, I felt a stab of pain. ‘I … fell. I think I hit my head. On the bath. Then I woke up on the floor.’

He wrote it down in a notepad. ‘That’s when you saw her, tried to pull her out, couldn’t, and ran for help. Is that right?’

My head was throbbing. I saw her image under the water. Shimmering and perfect. White all over. As I tried to remember, it hurt more. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said.

‘She was definitely dead at the time?’ I looked at him now. He had an air about him like one of the houses that had been bombed in the night Blitz, leaving a sad shell that, when the morning came, threatened to collapse in on itself.

‘Sergeant, as my wife told you –’ Nick interjected.

‘Please stay out of this, sir.’

‘She was dead. I know she was,’ I pleaded. I saw her again.

‘Mrs Cawson?’

I realized the policeman had asked me another question but I hadn’t heard it. Nick put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Sergeant, I’m taking my wife home,’ he said. ‘She can’t remember because she has concussion. It’s very common after an accident. You can speak to her later.’ He turned to me. ‘Just rest. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.’

‘I’m afraid you can’t take her, sir.’ I stared at the hammer-and-compass insignia on his cap. Even after years of seeing it, the sight still jarred.

‘I can and I will,’ Nick insisted, taking me by the arm.

We started to leave and I felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude to him. It wasn’t just gratitude, though – mixed in was a sense of guilt that was spreading as I recalled more. I had gone to the house in the mad, unjust belief that Nick was there, making love to her. I looked at him, trying to tell from his face if he knew what I had done, hoping that he didn’t, but I saw only concern for me. My eyes blurred with tears and I realized that, until then, I had been too shocked to cry.

But the policeman put an open hand in Nick’s path. He wasn’t young. He looked as if he had been in a few hard situations in his time and was prepared for another one if politeness wasn’t enough. ‘Dr Cawson, I can’t let your wife leave here until I’ve spoken to her. It’s the scene of a death. We have to know what we’re dealing with. You understand, don’t you, sir?’