I owe him an apology. He’ll never want to work with me again.

There was a high-pitched scream, so loud that Vera could hear it even at this distance. The man appeared on the deck with Alice in his arms. Connie followed. She was the person screaming. It seemed to Vera that the child was silent, frozen perhaps with fear, her only survival tactic to shut off all emotion. Frozen as Vera had been. But the scream had woken Vera up. Suddenly she found herself on the phone demanding back-up, an ambulance, a rubber dinghy and a helicopter. Screaming herself, into her mobile: ‘Now! Get them here now!’

On the deck the man was holding Alice above his head. It occurred to Vera that he must have strong muscles in his upper body to lift her so easily. Did he work out at the gym? Then she thought he looked a little like a priest. One of those grand priests in the fancy robes that you found in cathedrals, lifting the chalice for the congregation to see as he blessed it during the communion service. Or did they call it the mass? She’d never got the hang of the different denominations.

The man held his hands apart and dropped the girl into the lake. She disappeared without a splash.

Ashworth had reached the closest point to the boathouse and was already wading out towards it. Now he started swimming, his hair slick like an otter’s. On the decking Connie was struggling to get past the man, shouting and scratching at his face. But Vera kept her eyes fixed on Ashworth. He dived into the water and emerged, shaking the water from his head, holding the child. He swam on his back, clutching the girl’s body to his chest, until the water was shallow enough for him to stand. Then he held her over his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. Vera thought she would never be rude or snide to him again. Half walking and half swimming, he carried the child to the shore.

Chapter Forty-One

From the boathouse Simon Eliot watched impassively. Then he turned deliberately, did a perfect swallow-dive from the deck, and began to swim away to the far end of the pool. A show. Like the fit lifeguards at the Willows, when they were showing off in front of the yummy mummies. He must know now that there was no escape for him.