“Is less than a foot deep at low tide,” said Rosemary. “The channel widens once you’re inside, but the entrance is murderously narrow. That’s why Walton is so nice and quiet.”
“It’s easy enough with a following wind,” said Alastair, “but beating in and out can be amusing, to say the least of it.”
Ariadne slipped smoothly between the entrance buoys, and Alastair said, “Stand by to gybe. Mind your head, Henry. Gybe-oh.”
The boom came across with very little fuss: Alastair quickly paid out the sheet and put the helm to port. As Ariadne turned her nose obediently to starboard, Henry realized for the first time that there were two separate channels ahead of them, converging just inside the entrance.
“The port-hand channel goes up to the club and to Walton itself,” Alastair explained. “Not that you can get right up there at low water except in a dinghy. The starboard one, which we’re taking, is called Hamford Water, and it goes nowhere. Just meanders about for a bit and then gets lost. That’s the beauty of it.”
As they made their way upstream, deeper and deeper into the land-locked channel, green meadows stretched on either side of them, laced with spinneys of feathery trees. Small water birds bustled busily among the rushes at the water’s edge, and called pipingly to each other. The sun shone hotly.
“There they are,” Rosemary said suddenly, and then, as loudly as she could bellow, “Mary Jane ahoy!” She stood up on deck and waved both her long arms above her head.
Mary Jane lay quietly at anchor on the port-hand side of the channel. At Rosemary’s call, two supine figures on deck sat up and waved back. Alastair raised his beer mug significantly. This signal was evidently received and understood, for Colin and Anne were in their dinghy even before Rosemary had let go Ariadne’s anchor. The sails were lowered, the mainsail lashed neatly to the boom, and the helm secured amidships. Colin and Anne clambered aboard, and Rosemary brought up a fresh supply of beer.
“Did you know,” Colin was saying, “that this place is the original of Arthur Ransome’s Secret Water?”
“Is it really?” Emmy was vastly intrigued. “I was brought up on those books. I adored them.” She looked round her with a new, respectful interest. “Now that I’ve actually been here in a boat, I’ll have to go back and read them all over again.”
“Kid stuff,” said Anne. She was wearing a swimsuit the colour of a peeled grape, which displayed to full advantage the tanned perfection of her small body. “If you’re interested in sailing, read something useful, like Peter Heaton.” She sat up suddenly. “I’m going for a swim before lunch. Anybody coming?”
Alastair jumped up. “Wait for me!” he shouted. He plunged down into the cabin, and emerged a minute later in his bathing trunks. As Alastair dived in, Anne sped away downstream, doing a very efficient crawl. Alastair surfaced, shook his wet hair out of his eyes, and set off in hot pursuit.
Rosemary watched them go without pleasure. Then she said, in a strange, clipped voice, “Well, somebody’s got to get lunch. I suppose I’d better do it, as usual.”
“Let me help you.” Emmy quickly followed her below.
In the cockpit, Henry said to Colin, “Aren’t you going in?”
Colin shook his head. “I don’t swim. Never learnt. No proper sailor can swim. It only prolongs the agony if you’re wrecked.”
“That sounds a gloomy philosophy,” said Henry.
Ignoring this, Colin said, meditatively, “Anne’s quite right, you know. You ought to do some technical reading if you’re going to take up sailing at all seriously. Heaton, certainly, and Illingworth and Voss. Not to mention Reid’s Nautical Almanack. They run good navigation courses in London during the winter, too.”
“My dear fellow,” said Henry, “don’t try to tell me that you need celestial navigation to get a small boat from Berrybridge to Walton.”
“True,” said Colin, “although it’s well worth learning just for the fun of it. All right, we’ll let you off the navigation courses, but Voss you should read. You never know when you’ll get caught out in a blow and need to rig a sea anchor. Besides, it’s an immensely entertaining book, full of the old boy’s adventures...” His voice trailed into silence, and a sharp, speculative look came into his dark eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you’ll find it very interesting indeed. Then there’s Illingworth’s Offshore: that you mustn’t miss. I can lend it to you in London. And Ashley’s Book of Knots, to keep you happy through the long winter evenings. Can you do a Turk’s Head?”
“I doubt if I could do a reef,” said Henry humbly. “It’s a long time since I was a Boy Scout.”
“I get a lot of fun out of knots,” said Colin. He picked up a length of light rope. “Let me demonstrate the clove hitch. One of the most useful knots of all. You make a loop here...”
Henry watched with interest. He noticed that Colin had not even once glanced downriver at Alastair and Anne. When Henry had mastered the clove hitch and was struggling with the intricacies of the running bowline, Colin suddenly remarked, “Apropos of our conversation last night, I wasn’t joking you know. I’m convinced there was something funny about Pete’s death.”
“Are you?”
“Yes. All sorts of loose ends don’t tie up. I’ve got an idea, too, but it needs some working out.”
“I wonder,” said Henry, “why it didn’t occur to you sooner that things weren’t as straightforward as they seemed.”
Colin raised a face full of bland innocence, under which a secret amusement pulsed, rather frighteningly.
“Oh, but it did,” he said. “It occurred to all of us, except perhaps Alastair, who’s a simple soul.” He permitted himself a brief look in the direction of the swimmers. “Poor Alastair,” he added, “he’s very easily fooled, you know.”
In the cabin, Rosemary was tossing salad with hot, angry tears in her eyes.
“Where’s the butter?” Emmy asked.
“In the...the...” Rosemary’s voice broke, and she turned her head away. “Oh, blast,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Rosemary,” said Emmy, embarrassed, “I know it’s none of my business, but—”
Rosemary buried her face in an inadequate handkerchief. “I’m so frightened,” she said, in a voice muffled by tears and Irish linen. “So terribly frightened.”
“What of?”
“Alastair and I...we’ve been married six years now...we’ve always been so happy...”
Emmy, who could think of no useful reply to this, tried to say nothing in a sympathetic way.
Rosemary blew her nose loudly, and then said, shakily but with some violence, “I believe she’s a witch.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” said Emmy. “Surely—”
“All of them,” said Rosemary. “Colin and Pete and...and David...and now Alastair. She sends them crazy. It’s uncanny.”
“Pete?” said Emmy. “I thought Pete jilted her.”
“Pete was just as badly bitten as the rest of them,” said Rosemary more calmly. “But he was older and more sensible and he saw the red light before it was too late. So he got out. That infuriated her. She’s not used to that sort of treatment. If anybody killed him...” She tossed the salad with unnecessary force. “I’m sorry I made an exhibition of myself. It’s just that with this business of Pete’s death and...and everything...”
“I know it’s hell,” said Emmy, “but, seriously, don’t worry. Alastair adores you.”
“I wonder,” said Rosemary. There was a long silence, and then she said, briskly, “The butter’s in the starboard cupboard in a polythene bag.”
After lunch, Colin announced his intention of going back to Mary Jane and getting his head down.
Alastair looked shocked. “And waste a perfect afternoon’s sailing?” he demanded indignantly.