Free Disturbing Ground by Priscilla Masters

more than one occasion. She wondered whether he would blush when his wife asked him where he had been tonight. And with whom?
    He took a deep draft then set his beer back down on the table. “And how are you managing now, on your own?”
    She shrugged.
    “Must be a bit lonely after -”
    She sidestepped the personal interest. “What’s the official version of Bianca’s death? Are the police making any investigation?”
    “Why do you ask? What’s your involvement in it? She was just a patient of yours, wasn’t she?”
    “Her daughter …” she began.
    “Oh - Carole.” Alun made a face. “She’s been makin’ all sorts of allegations. Police neglect - not caring. You name it. Actually we have been takin’ statements as well as making a proper inspection of the area around the pool.”
    “And?”
    “We think Bianca slipped in sometime on Sunday night. She can’t possibly have fallen in during daylight. Someone would surely have seen her. So that would mean after nine o’ clock on Sunday night. We’ve taken statements from a few people who saw what they thought was some old clothes in the pool. It was her all right. There was light rain on Sunday night. That would have made the ground a little bit slippy.”
    She remembered the rain, a soft, summer rain that had seemed to moisten the atmosphere without falling as raindrops. And the cloud of damp had lain heavy in the valley as a cloying, grey mist blotting out the mountains. She had escaped by spending the evening with a friend in Cardiff and had returned late - well after nine. By then Bianca must have been a floating corpse.
    She looked enquiringly at Alun for further explanation.
    “The pathologist thought she might have saved up a couple of her pills and taken them all together, got a bit confused and knocked off, wandered up there, slipped onthe grass, knocked her head and fell in. And the police surgeon agreed with this version. Apparently once she’d fallen in the water she never really drew breath. But she would have found it hard to scramble out of the pool anyway because her clothes had got tangled up in an old pram someone had dumped there. That’s the official verdict.”
    It was a logical explanation. But something didn’t fit. Megan fumbled around trying to understand what it was. “And the stone in her pocket? Would it have been enough to weigh her down?”
    “No - not really. Goodness knows. It was something broken off an old statue or something. A piece of carved stone. Not very big.”
    “What was it?”
    “I don’t know. Like a claw or something.”
    “And where had she got it from?”
    “I don’t know, Megan.”
    She picked up on his exasperation. “And you don’t think it’s important.”
    He shook his head, leaned forward, touched her hand. “Meggie,” he said bluntly, “all the police are concerned about is that no one else was involved. It wasn’t murder. It might have been suicide. It probably was an accident.”
    “But what was she doing up there in the first place? Bianca was frightened to leave her house after dark.”
    Alun looked amused. “You’re not trying to be a detective, are you? You should stick to being a doctor, Meggie. From what I’ve heard you’re good at that. All I can say is we’ve finished our enquiries. We’ve handed our notes to the coroner and he’s happy.”
    She regarded him for a moment before asking, “Have you seen anyone who actually saw her heading up the Pool? Did anyone see her any time on Saturday or all day Sunday?”
    Alun reddened. “What are you suggesting?”
    “And how do you explain the head injury?”
    “She hit it as she fell into the pool.”
    “What on? Have you sent frogmen down?”
    “The pool’s a few feet deep, Megan. The bottom is full of rubbish. There’s plenty of stuff there she could have hurt herself on. I don’t get where you’re comin’ from.”
    “I’ll tell you where I’m coming from, Alun,” she said quietly. “Bianca was “three