Too Much of Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

usually rings at the weekend.’ The banal repetition trailed away into the corners of the quiet room. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Something bad.’
    Hook nodded to the young woman beside him, who went tremulously into the sentences she had prepared for this moment. ‘You may have read that a female corpse was discovered on Wednesday in the Severn at Lydney. There has been no formal identification made yet, but we have reason to think—’
    â€˜It’s Clare, isn’t it? That’s what you think! That’s why you’re here.’ Her hand flew involuntarily to her mouth. White teeth gnawed at her well-manicured fingers, as if like a child she had to stop herself from screaming. Yet Hook had the curious feeling that she was acting out the symptoms of grief, rather than genuinely affected.
    â€˜We have reason to think that it might be your daughter. She has been absent from her flat since the weekend, and if she hasn’t been here—’
    â€˜I knew it! I knew something was wrong when she didn’t ring me. She always rang me, at least once a week.’
    â€˜The body is a female of about your daughter’s age. There was a university library card in the pocket of her jeans. The library computer tells us that this belonged to your daughter. We shall need a formal identification before we can be certain, but—’
    â€˜I’ll do it. I’ll come with you now, if you want me to!’
    There was a febrile excitement about the woman, almost an eagerness to have her worst fears confirmed. Hook deduced nothing from that: grief affected people in a host of different ways. ‘The corpse is somewhat damaged, Mrs Hudson. Seeing it will be an ordeal. Perhaps Clare’s father, or your present husband, could do the—’
    â€˜Clare’s father is in New Zealand. And I don’t want my present husband doing this. I’ll come with you myself. I’ll come with you now.’
    They waited a few minutes, listening to her movements upstairs. She came down in a dark dress, as if already in mourning for her daughter. The body was still at Chepstow, and Hook phoned the morgue there to warn them of their impending visit.
    He wondered why this brittle woman had been so determined that her present husband would not do the identification.
    Clare Mills’s flatmate was nervous.
    Anne Jackson raced around the rooms in something like a panic when the phone call came through to say that the police were coming. They wouldn’t say why they wanted to see the flat, but it sounded bad to her. The students at the university were all talking about the body that had been fished out of the Severn and speculating that it might be Clare. Harry Shadwell hadn’t told her that he was going to the police. It was just like him, that, dithering so uncertainly about what action to take when she had been to see him and then rushing off to inform the authorities himself the next day, without telling her what he was doing. Other people seemed to have been allotted personal tutors who were much more on the ball than Shadwell.
    Anne moved the things she had been looking for, then hastened to tidy the place. She gave the bathroom and the kitchen a quick clean, wiping the surfaces and removing the clutter of make-up in the bathroom and the beakers in the kitchen which seemed part and parcel of student life. She realized with a little start of guilt that it had usually been Clare who did the minimal cleaning they allowed themselves in the place. She put her notebook and the books she had got from the library on the table under the window: might as well play the virtuous student.
    She was surprised when they arrived, exactly at noon as she had suggested. Anne had expected a couple of uniformed people, probably about her own age, who would go through a standard list of enquiries. Instead, she got a superintendent and an inspector: top brass, as her father would have