‘About all I can tell you at this point is that the man has been in the water for something like a couple of days,’ said Starkie, the police pathologist. ‘Right now the temperature of the water at the surface is seventy-four degrees, but this end of the pool is six feet deep, and the further down you go, the cooler it gets, so I can’t come any closer than that until I’ve had him on the table.’
‘Two days,’ said Paget thoughtfully. ‘I saw him myself Tuesday afternoon, so if he has been in the water for two days, he must have died sometime late Tuesday afternoon or that same evening. Now what I need to know is how he died?’
‘I should think drowning would be one possibility,’ Starkie said, straight-faced, ‘but there are one or two bruises on him, so you will have to wait for the results of the autopsy – which won’t be until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest,’ he added before Paget had a chance to ask.
Paget had been alerted by Tregalles within minutes of the discovery of the body of Roger Corbett, and he’d driven out to the house to take charge of the investigation himself.
There was always the possibility that Corbett’s death had been an accident. If, as had been suggested, Corbett had been drinking heavily, he might have driven home, then gone down to feed or look at his fish and simply toppled in and drowned. But considering the timing, Paget preferred to treat it as a suspicious death.
Inspector Charlie Dobbs, the man in charge of the scenes of crime investigators, had been notified, and his team was just now arriving. The house and garden had been declared a crime scene, and cordoned off by uniformed Constables who had been called in to assist, and Molly Forsythe was in the house with Lisa.
‘It may not mean anything,’ Tregalles said as he and Paget walked back to the house, ‘but I don’t think Roger Corbett was the last person to drive his Volvo. According to his wife, Corbett is five foot five, yet when I checked the car in the driveway, I found the seat and rear-view mirror were set for someone taller.’
‘So someone else could have brought him home.’
‘That’s right. The next question is: how did they get back to town, assuming that’s where they came from in the first place? Miss Sinclair said she called the cab companies, but they had no record of being called to this address.’
‘Better check with them just the same,’ Paget told him, ‘because they may not have spent much time looking when a member of the public called. And have Forensic go over the car. Then, tomorrow, I want you to start at Corbett’s office, find out when he left, and if he made any phone calls before he left, then find out where he went after that.
‘Now, what about Mrs Corbett? How did she react when you first pulled Corbett’s body to the surface?’
‘She was pretty shaken up,’ Tregalles said. ‘It wasn’t a pleasant sight, with his soggy clothes and him all covered in reeds and muck. Well, you saw him yourself, so you know what I mean. It was enough to put anybody off.’
‘Is it possible that her reaction could have been from the shock of having his body discovered when she thought it was safely at the bottom of the pond?’
‘Could have been, I suppose,’ Tregalles said, but he sounded doubtful. ‘Although, to tell you the truth, I was concentrating on the body, so I wasn’t paying that much attention to Mrs Corbett. Molly may be able to tell you more about that. She helped Mrs Corbett to the bench in the corner, and sat with her for a few minutes.’
‘You said it was Mrs Corbett who suggested you look at the pond in the first place?’
‘That’s right. So why would she do that if she knew Corbett’s body was in the pond? Mind you,’ he continued slowly, ‘now I think about it, she did keep us talking at the shallow end, and we would never have known there was anything wrong if Molly hadn’t gone to the deep end to take a closer look at the flowers.’
‘So it’s possible that Mrs Corbett steered you down here deliberately so you would feel that she was being cooperative in letting you have a good look round, but kept you away from the deep end of the pool?’
Tregalles screwed up his face. ‘Possible,’ he conceded grudgingly, ‘but I don’t think so. She certainly didn’t show any signs of nervousness while we were there, and she didn’t try to stop Molly from going down the other end.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t think Forsythe would notice anything was amiss,’ Paget countered. ‘In fact, it probably took those leaves a day or so to turn that colour, so Mrs Corbett may not have been aware that there was any need to be concerned.’
Paget looked at his watch as they reached the steps to the terrace. ‘I’m going inside to talk to Mrs Corbett,’ he said, ‘but I’d like you to stay out here and work with Charlie’s people. They won’t be finished here tonight, so get hold of Ormside and tell him we’ll need someone out here on night watch.’
Inside the house, Paget found Molly and Lisa Corbett in the kitchen. Lisa was sitting at the table, head lowered, eyes closed, while Molly stood at the counter pouring boiling water into an oversized teapot.
‘Tea’s gone cold, sir, so I’m making a fresh pot,’ she told Paget. ‘Would you like a cup?’
‘Yes, I would,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Constable.’
Lisa opened her eyes and acknowledged his presence with a brief glance before fixing her gaze on her clasped hands resting on the table in front of her.
‘I know this is the worst possible time, Mrs Corbett,’ Paget said apologetically as he drew up a chair, ‘but I would like to ask you a few questions, if you feel up to it?’
Lisa didn’t look as if she’d been crying, but her face was pale and drawn, and she no longer looked as youthful as she had earlier in the day.
‘Of course,’ she said in a low voice. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘You told us earlier today that it was close to midnight when you got home after driving back from Scarborough,’ he said. ‘Was Mr Corbett’s car in the driveway when you arrived?’
‘Yes, it was, which is why I assumed he was in the house.’
‘Has the car been moved since then?’
‘No. But why are you asking questions about the car?’
‘Because the seat and rear-view mirror appear to be set to accommodate a taller driver,’ Paget told her. ‘Did you have any reason to move the seat back or adjust the position of the mirror?’
‘No, of course not. Why would I?’
‘No reason that I can think of,’ Paget said, ‘which makes me wonder if someone else drove your husband home.’
Molly brought a tray to the table and slid a steaming cup of tea in front of each of them before sitting down at the end of the table and taking out her notebook.
Lisa’s frown deepened as she picked up her cup. ‘I suppose that’s possible,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know who would do that other than Irene, and she says she didn’t. Even if she did, she’s no bigger than I am, as you know.’
‘You came in by the front door, I take it. Was it locked?’
‘No, it wasn’t locked, but that wasn’t unusual. Roger was inclined to be a bit careless about such things.’
‘Mrs Corbett told us that she found a bottle of whisky, a glass, and an empty bag of crisps on the coffee table,’ said Molly.
‘They were on the coffee table just where Roger had left them,’ Lisa explained, ‘and I do so hate that, so I cleared up, washed the glass and poured the rest of the whisky down the sink.’ Lisa’s eyes were moist as she looked at Paget. ‘Roger must have gone out to look at his fish before going to bed, and fallen in,’ she said huskily.
‘When did you first realize that your husband wasn’t in the house?’
‘When I went to call him just before I left the house to go shopping yesterday morning.’
‘Didn’t that surprise you?’
‘No, not really. I assumed he was with Irene. The fact that the car was there and Roger wasn’t didn’t have any significance until Irene phoned to ask if he was here, then rang again this morning to say no one had seen him since Tuesday afternoon.’
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘who feeds the fish when you and your husband are away?’
‘The fish?’ The question seemed to take Lisa by surprise, but she answered it. ‘We’re rarely both away at the same time,’ she said. ‘Even when Roger’s staying with Irene, he always comes back up here each day to see to the fish.’
‘How often do they have to be fed?’
‘In this heat, Roger’s been feeding them twice a day.’
‘And, since he wasn’t here, did you feed them yourself yesterday?’
‘Yes, I did,’ she said in a low voice.
‘And again, today, I presume?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did you notice any dead leaves on the water at that time?’
Lisa looked uncomfortable as she shook her head. ‘They’re always fed from the shallow end,’ she said, ‘so I didn’t go to the other end.’ She looked troubled as she sat forward to lend emphasis to what she was about to say. ‘You must understand, Chief Inspector, I had no idea at that point that anything like . . .’ She broke off to take a deep breath. ‘That anything had happened to Roger. I know how this must sound now, but at the time I was so annoyed with him for going off without a word to anyone, that I went down and fed the fish and came straight back to the house. I should have gone down the other end of the pond to check the temperature of the water and the filtration system – Roger keeps a running log on everything to do with the fish – but I didn’t. That was probably what Roger was doing when he fell in and couldn’t get out,’ she ended huskily.
‘If that is what happened,’ said Paget neutrally.
Lisa looked at him. ‘Just what are you suggesting, Chief Inspector?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure myself,’ he said slowly, ‘but when I questioned your husband the other day, I had the distinct impression that he knew more than he was telling me, and that makes me suspicious when he is found dead within hours of my talking to him. I’m not a strong believer in coincidence, Mrs Corbett, so if there is anything you know; anything you can tell me that might shed light on the way your husband died, now is the time to tell me.’
The expression on Lisa Corbett’s face hardened, and her voice was brittle when she said, ‘If you’re referring to what you told me this afternoon about this Grant boy and what happened to Kevin Taylor’s father all those years ago, all I can tell you is that I know nothing about those things because I didn’t live here then, and I’m quite sure that Roger would never have been involved in any way. So, if you are suggesting that his drowning in the pond wasn’t an accident, and he came back here and killed himself, I think the whole idea is ludicrous. Believe me, Chief Inspector, if Roger intended to commit suicide, which I don’t think for a single second is true, the koi pond is the last place he would choose.’
‘The last place most people would choose, I should think,’ Paget told her as he stood up and pushed his chair back. ‘And I agree with you, because, like you, I don’t think your husband committed suicide. I can’t prove it yet, but I believe he was murdered.’