Ordeal by Innocence

Chapter 11

Night settled down on Sunny Point.

Chapter 12

In her spotlessly kept bedroom, Kirsten Lindstrom plaited her grizzled blonde…

Chapter 13

Superintendent Huish looked round on them all, gently and politely.

Chapter 14

‘Don’t suppose you got anything?’ said the Chief Constable.

Chapter 15

‘But I don’t want to go home just yet,’ said…

Chapter 16

‘Do you mind if I stay on a bit, Dad?’…

Chapter 17

‘And what are you doing, Hester, my love?’ asked Philip.

Chapter 18

‘There’s a young lady down below wanting to see you,…

Chapter 19

‘I want to talk to you, Kirsty,’ said Philip.

Chapter 20

Calgary and Huish looked at each other. Calgary saw what…

Chapter 21

There had been nothing to tell Philip Durrant that this day…

Chapter 22

Tina parked her car on the grass by the churchyard…

Chapter 23

In his hotel room, Arthur Calgary went over and over the…

Chapter 24

It was again dusk when Arthur Calgary came to Sunny Point…

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Chapter 1

I

It was dusk when he came to the Ferry.

He could have been there much earlier. The truth was, he had put it off as long as he could.

First his luncheon with friends in Redquay; the light desultory conversation, the interchange of gossip about mutual friends–all that had meant only that he was inwardly shrinking from what he had to do. His friends had invited him to stay on for tea and he had accepted. But at last the time had come when he knew that he could put things off no longer.

The car he had hired was waiting. He said goodbye and left to drive the seven miles along the crowded coast road and then inland down the wooded lane that ended at the little stone quay on the river.

There was a large bell there which his driver rang vigorously to summon the ferry from the far side.

‘You won’t be wanting me to wait, sir?’

‘No,’ said Arthur Calgary. ‘I’ve ordered a car to meet me over there in an hour’s time–to take me to Drymouth.’

The man received his fare and tip. He said, peering across the river in the gloom:

‘Ferry’s coming now, sir.’

With a soft-spoken goodnight he reversed the car and drove away up the hill. Arthur Calgary was left alone waiting on the quayside. Alone with his thoughts and his apprehension of what was in front of him. How wild the scenery was here, he thought. One could fancy oneself on a Scottish loch, far from anywhere. And yet, only a few miles away, were the hotels, the shops, the cocktail bars and the crowds of Redquay. He reflected, not for the first time, on the extraordinary contrasts of the English landscape.

He heard the soft plash of the oars as the ferry boat drew in to the side of the little quay. Arthur Calgary walked down the sloping ramp and got into the boat as the ferryman steadied it with a boathook. He was an old man and gave Calgary the fanciful impression that he and his boat belonged together, were one and indivisible.

A little cold wind came rustling up from the sea as they pushed off.

‘’Tis chilly this evening,’ said the ferryman.

Calgary replied suitably. He further agreed that it was colder than yesterday.

He was conscious, or thought he was conscious, of a veiled curiosity in the ferryman’s eyes. Here was a stranger. And a stranger after the close of the tourist season proper. Moreover, this stranger was crossing at an unusual hour–too late for tea at the café by the pier. He had no luggage so he could not be coming to stay. (Why, Calgary wondered, had he come so late in the day? Was it really because, subconsciously, he had been putting this moment off? Leaving as late as possible, the thing that had to be done?) Crossing the Rubicon–the river…the river…his mind went back to that other river–the Thames.

He had stared at it unseeingly (was it only yesterday?) then turned to look again at the man facing him across the table. Those thoughtful eyes with something in them that he had not quite been able to understand. A reserve, something that was being thought but not expressed…