Free Keeping Bad Company by Caro Peacock Page A

to go but I thought I’d take a glance in the bedroom, just in case he happened to be still in there and asleep. I opened the door. Nothing. The bed hadn’t been slept in. Then I noticed that the door from the bedroom to the bathroom was half open.’
    A long pause. He sat, head lowered, breathing deeply. When he looked up, his expression was dazed, as if living the scene again.
    â€˜Have you ever felt as if your mind’s split itself in two? As if half of it’s saying that of course everything is quite all right, nothing to worry about, while the other half’s screaming out that something terrible has happened? That’s the way I felt, looking at that door and the sunlight coming through the doorway from the bathroom window. It was just a door, and yet somehow I already knew what I’d see when I went through it.’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    Only I didn’t think Tom heard. In any case, it wouldn’t have helped him then to tell him why I knew exactly what he meant.
    â€˜So I opened the door and went in,’ Tom said. ‘The sun was bright, even through the curtain, and it was shining in my eyes so I couldn’t see properly. He was sitting up in the bath facing me, with his back to the window. I felt embarrassed and started apologizing. I think it was the smell that told me, before anything else. The blood smell, you know, like iron filings.’
    â€˜Yes, I know.’
    â€˜I looked down and the water was red. It came halfway up his chest. I was thinking, stupidly, “What’s he doing sitting there in red water?” I think I’d even taken a step forward to lift him out of it, then I saw his wrist. His left wrist it was, just under the water. It was cut nearly half through, flopping back. His other wrist had got trapped between his body and the side of the bath, but when we got him out that was cut through too.’
    â€˜We?’
    â€˜Myself and the men from East India House.’
    â€˜How did they know?’
    â€˜I went and told them. Not immediately. I . . . I had to be sure he . . . really was dead. I knelt down and put my hand on his chest. No heartbeat. I remembered you were meant to try a feather, so I went to the bed and found a feather out of the pillow and held it under his nose. Not a breath. His eyes . . . his eyes were open. All the time, I half expected him to laugh and ask what I was doing. Only . . . oh, Libby.’
    I went and sat beside him on the couch and held him. It was a long time before he moved away.
    â€˜I must go back. There’ll be things to do. They said the coroner’s officer will want to speak to me because I found him.’
    â€˜He’ll wait for a while,’ I said.
    I got up, poured Madeira for both of us and went back to sit beside Tom.
    â€˜So you went and told them at East India House?’
    â€˜Yes. It was just round the corner. It was the obvious thing to do. I passed a police constable and thought of telling him, but what would have been the good?’
    â€˜How did people react when you told them?’
    â€˜Shocked. The first one I told was Mr Jarvis. He’s the head of the section where they’ve put me, not a bad old stick. But before I knew it, the Calcutta men had taken over.’
    â€˜You mean, the ones who didn’t like Mr Griffiths?’
    â€˜Yes. Three of them came back to his rooms with me. They called the porter up from the basement to lift him out of the water and wrapped him in sheets and blankets off the bed. There was blood and water everywhere.’
    â€˜They told the police?’
    â€˜There was a little crowd outside the house by then. People knew something had happened. A constable came up to them and one of the Calcutta men sent him to tell the coroner. They took his body away in a cart.’
    â€˜These Calcutta men, was Alexander McPherson one of them?’
    â€˜No, but he’ll know by now. I dare say he’s gloating.’
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