Murder Most Royal

You’ll love it, I promise you.’

For a good ten minutes, Rozie discussed the benefits of immersing the human body in very cold water. Having tried it in the army during various exercises, she still maintained that it was a terrible idea unless absolutely necessary for the security of the nation, but she practised looking fascinated. Afterwards, it wasn’t hard to veer the conversation back towards the subject of Chris, who had been such a passionate convert to wild swimming. As Katie suspected, he knew all the rules of swimming in very cold water.

He simply would not have gone out alone, and stayed out for so long, by accident.

‘You don’t think . . .? I mean, there’s no reason to suppose he wasn’t alone, is there?’ Rozie said.

Mary’s eyes widened. ‘D’you mean, did someone make him do it? Oh, goodness! What a horror! No! People aren’t speculating about that in Dersingham, are they?’

‘One or two were wondering . . .’ Rozie said, feeling hugely disloyal to A Load of Balls and the Sweary Stitchers, even though she wasn’t a member.

Mary looked militant. ‘Well, you can put their minds at ease, if you can call it that. I know why he went out that day. He absolutely intended to do what he did. It was simply awful.’

Rozie said nothing. Sometimes silence and an interested expression was enough.

‘He was recently widowed, you know. Laura, his wife, was the shepherdess for the farm. They’d lived in that cottage forty years. She died in the bedroom, with him beside her. The kids were born there. Laura poured her heart and soul into the place.

She was diagnosed with cancer at about the same time as the baroness. The last one, I mean – Lee. They nursed each other through it. You’d think the family would have some decency. But after the baroness died . . .’

Mary shook her head. ‘Chris said they’d told him the cottage was wanted for a bloody Airbnb. They were giving him three months to get out. He had nowhere else to go, no idea what to do. I drank a dram of whisky with him on New Year’s Eve and I could see how overwrought he was.

’

‘So you think he went into the sea like that deliberately?’

‘Oh, I’m sure of it. I made a promise to myself that I’d go over after lunch on New Year’s Day and check he was OK. But by then it was already much too late. He’d left his wallet in a bag on the beach. I was his emergency contact, so they called me.’ Tears spilled silently down her cheeks. ‘And I was just here, making soup.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Rozie said gently.