Hannah reached for her phone on the table beside the bed; it was just after 8am. The sun was sliding through the bottom of the shutters, casting spiky shapes across the carpet, and already the room felt hot. She must have thrown off the sheet in the night, because it was bundled in a messy heap at the bottom of the bed.
She turned over and looked at Nick. He was lying on his back snoring loudly, his arms thrown above his head, his mouth open. She smelt stale red wine as he snorted and rolled towards her, opening one eye and staring at her without really seeing.
‘How are you feeling?’ she whispered.
‘Like shit.’
‘I’m not surprised. Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘No, I want to die.’ He groaned and closed his eye again, pulling the pillow over his head.
She crept out of the bedroom and down the stairs. There was no one else awake, and she revelled in the silence as she walked through into the kitchen, opening the French doors and letting fresh air flood in. The room smelt like a bar and the surfaces were littered with dirty glasses, empty bottles and crumpled crisp packets. At some stage the men had started eating cheese and, when they finally went to bed, the scraps had been left on a board in the middle of the table. This was now swarming with ants: tiny black dots raced backwards and forwards, collecting crumbs twice the size of their own bodies and scuttling away with them. She followed the trail along the table, down one of the legs and across the floor towards the skirting board, noticing a parallel stream of ants was working its way back the other way, presumably returning for more, having offloaded their cargo.
Hannah began to stack glasses in the sink and took the board outside onto the lawn, tossing the remaining bits of cheese into the grass, along with dozens of ants. Had Mr Hugo made it home? It was dark by the time they got rid of him; Nick had been snoring on the sofa in the sitting room, and Marcus had fallen asleep at the kitchen table, the side of his face squashed against his folded arms.
Lizzie had tried to help Hugo into his jacket, following him as he swayed around the kitchen, singing.
‘Hold still, Mr Hugo, there we go,’ she said, grabbing his hand and threading it into the sleeve. ‘And the other one, that’s it…’
Between them the sisters had led him through the dining room to the front door, and watched him stagger across the gravel, veering to one side and getting a sleeve tangled in a bush before leaning against Marcus’s car to prepare himself for setting off again.
‘Should we go with him?’ Lizzie had asked.
‘We don’t even know where he lives,’ said Hannah. ‘It could be miles away. I’m sure he’ll be okay. I have a feeling it isn’t the first time he’s had to make his way home in this state.’
They watched him go through the gates and for a few seconds could make out his outline as he moved down the lane, one arm raised in the air, swinging the now empty bottle of pastis above his head while he sang loudly. As they turned back to the house, there was a crash and the tinkling of glass against stones. They looked at each other.
‘Allez! Va au diable!’ Then the singing resumed, becoming more distant.
‘He’ll be fine,’ said Hannah.
Now, as she found a broom and started sweeping ants and bits of cheese from the stone floor, she hoped Hugo had made it further than the end of the lane, otherwise the police would have two bodies to deal with. The image of the man in the pool came flooding back into her head: would she ever forget her first sight of that spread-eagled figure?
The good news was that, yesterday evening, the pool man had eventually folded up his newspaper and packed his equipment into his van, so they could swim today.
She went into the garden and through the gap in the hedge, her spirits soaring at the sight of the pool, now full nearly to the brim. The water was iridescent in the early morning sunlight: pearls of white and silver light scuttling across the surface, the faint breeze creating tiny waves on the surface, like ripples in a piece of blue material.
It looked huge, possibly because – although now full of water – it was also wonderfully empty: no dead bodies, no crouching policemen wearing plastic gloves, no divers with their limbs sucked into black rubber wetsuits.
Hannah crouched down on the edge and dipped one hand into the water. It was icy, but the sun was already powerful enough to warm her fingers as soon as she spread them out on the tiles. She was desperate to swim.
She looked back at the house, half hidden behind the laurel hedge; the shutters were still closed on all the upstairs windows. Her costume was in the drawer of the large cupboard in the bedroom, but she couldn’t be bothered to go back inside and brave the room that smelt like a bar in order to find it.
Anyway, it was so early, no one else would be up for ages: damn it, she’d get in without a costume.
She stood up and pulled her T-shirt over her head, standing naked at the end of the pool, looking at the shimmering water.
Diving in didn’t seem like a good idea: the shock of the cold water would be horrific. Instead, she put her hands on the tiled edge at the deep end and slowly lowered herself down. Her feet were wet, then her knees, then her thighs.
She gasped and gritted her teeth as more of her body dropped into the freezing water – how did people swim in the sea at Christmas? This wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was painful. Finally, taking a deep breath, she let go and plunged in, her hair rippling away from her head, the icy water stabbing at her breasts, neck and face like millions of tiny knives. It was excruciating, but exquisite at the same time. Her feet touched the bottom and she pushed herself up again, launching out of the water before falling back into it again.
‘Bloody hell!’ she panted. ‘Bloody, bloody hell!’
Turning around, she ploughed up the pool, pulling her arms into a jagged breaststroke that would have embarrassed her in a public pool: the sort of panicked flailing carried out by old ladies who refused to get their hair wet as they paddled from one end to the other. But the movement was warming up her limbs. She swam up and down several more times, the chill receding, her heart pumping. It was bliss. She’d loved swimming as a child, but as an adult it was one of those activities that seemed hard to fit in. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in the water like this: maybe on holiday in Greece, two summers ago?
Eventually she stopped and let herself float on her back in the middle of the pool, her arms stretched out on either side, staring up into the sky. What kind of a blue was it exactly? Baby-blue maybe, or powder blue? Lighter above her head, slightly deeper towards the horizon; the blue of a bird’s egg. Cerulean, cobalt, aquamarine, sapphire: the names of paint shades she had used many years ago in art classes came washing through her mind, none of them quite right for describing this vast, dense colour above her head.
She closed her eyes and felt the sun beat down on her face, seeing orange through her closed eyelids rather than blue. She sculled herself through the water with her cupped hands, rotating like a wheel, keeping her legs and arms straight out on either side. It occurred to her that she was floating in almost exactly the same place as the body had been, when they arrived on Saturday. In fact, with her arms and legs outstretched, she was even creating the same X shape. She pushed the thought away and concentrated on floating: it felt as if she could lie here for hours, limbs outstretched, water lapping at her body, the sun caressing her naked skin.
‘Bonjour, madame.’
Hannah shrieked and collapsed in on herself, her body dropping below the surface of the water as her feet scrabbled against the slippery tiled floor.
Inspector Moreau was standing at the far end of the pool, his hands in his pockets, his face impassive. She wrapped her arms around herself, covering her breasts, then lowering one hand to cover the tops of her thighs.
‘Good morning.’ She tried to sound casual.
‘Please, my apologies,’ he said, his face still impassive. ‘I did not want to disturb your swim, madame.’
How long had he been standing there? He must have been watching her floating around – possibly also reminded of the dead body that had been dragged out of this pool. At least that poor man had been fully clothed. She was excruciatingly aware of her nakedness, and felt her face flaring with embarrassment.
‘What a beautiful day!’ she said, over brightly. ‘I thought I would get in here, you know… spend some time in the water. Because it’s so lovely.’
‘Indeed,’ he nodded, not moving.
‘The perfect day for a swim, just ploughing up and down,’ she added, wondering how long she could continue holding a conversation in this situation. Now she’d stopped moving, the water was icy against her skin and she began to shiver.
‘Mum! What are you doing?’ Alice had appeared through the gap in the hedge and was standing staring at Hannah, then at the policeman. Her hair was tousled and she was wearing the T-shirt she liked sleeping in better than any of the pyjamas Hannah bought her. ‘You’re naked!’
‘Yes, Alice, I know I’m naked. Please can you go and get me a towel or something?’ Hannah hissed.
‘But why are you in the pool without any clothes on?’
‘I’ll explain later. Alice, a towel please.’
‘What’s happened to your swimming costume?’
‘Alice, just go and get me a fucking towel!’