Yet he knew the seed of the misunderstanding had been sown earlier, in Vienna, when they had come across the little shrine by the canal. It was clear from what she’d said that he shouldn’t have distanced himself from the death of the woman. He’d treated the tragedy professionally, as a policeman, sidestepping the sympathy Paloma had obviously felt. Someone had come to a tragic end and he’d not shown the concern expected of him. Paloma had wanted to learn more about the victim while his instinct was to move on and be grateful it was someone else’s case.
His bigger misjudgement had been to follow up on the Vienna incident, asking Ingeborg to find out the facts. If he’d been consistent, he would have let well alone. Stupidly, he’d wanted Paloma to be pleased he’d gone to this extra trouble – even allowing that he’d only delegated the duty. He hadn’t thought ahead, hadn’t sensed that by raising the subject again he was giving her a rerun of the same scene: his professional way of dealing with the fact of death against her heart-felt sympathy.
The outrage she’d kept in check in Vienna had reared up. A moment of turmoil neither of them could have prepared for.
Would she come round?
Women could be every bit as obstinate as men.
Without much to console him, he stopped to watch the steady flow of the river. Recent heavy rain had quickened the current and pieces of driftwood were being carried quite swiftly. Any one of them could have resembled the body when it was first noticed, demonstrating the impossibility of finding exactly where it had entered the water. It must have been submerged somewhere upriver for a considerable time before the internal gases made it buoyant and mobile.
He’d ruled out a search of the river banks.
But there were finites he hadn’t taken into account until now. The Avon wasn’t free-flowing from source to sea. He should have remembered it had man-made barriers. Only a few hundred metres upstream from here was Pulteney weir, where he’d often seen floating objects trapped by the curved wall. And not far downstream was Weston lock.
The obvious conclusion was that the body had entered the water somewhere below the weir. It had been recovered some way short of the lock, not much over a mile away.
He revised his plan of action. Both river banks along this stretch needed to be searched, a real fingertip search for possible items belonging to the deceased. Her shoes may well have been lost while in the water, but what about her bag, phone, watch or an item of jewellery? Find some object belonging to her and you would almost certainly know where she’d got into the river. Then the sub-aqua team could go to work.
He’d have a search squad make a start in the morning.
With that decided, he resumed his walk and almost immediately his pulse quickened. Ahead on the towpath, approaching from the Saltford direction, was a familiar figure. He recognised the way she walked, her height and the cut of her hair. Coincidence, or had she chosen to walk the towpath knowing he often came here at this time in the evening?
He’d spotted her, so she must have seen him. She continued her approach at the same deliberate rate.
What now? he asked himself. Do I say I behaved abysmally and ask her to forgive and forget? The fact that she’s chosen to come this way at this time of day must surely mean she’s in a forgiving frame of mind. She’s missing me as much as I’m missing her.
Best offer her a drink, but not – for an obvious reason – in the Dolphin, and not the Old Crown, his local, where some of the regulars still remembered Steph. He was still dithering between pubs when he became conscious of a movement by his feet. A small dog, a dachshund, had trotted past and then returned, as if checking if it knew Diamond. It had a confident look, head cocked to the right, although who was the owner of this silky charmer wasn’t clear. Having decided, apparently, that Diamond was a disappointment, it turned and scampered off – straight towards the woman he had taken to be Paloma.
Odd.
So far as he was aware, Paloma didn’t possess a dog.
He watched the dachshund run the short distance, stop, turn and apparently come to heel – and the woman stooped to fasten the lead to its collar. Now he saw with crushing certainty that she wasn’t who he’d supposed. She had the same style of walking, but she was undeniably someone else. He’d superimposed his image of Paloma on to this stranger, a younger woman with lighter-coloured hair.
How pathetic was that? He was as churned up inside as a smitten teenager.
He about-turned and retraced his steps. The world wasn’t a romantic novel. Chance meetings don’t happen when you need them. If he wanted an improvement in his wretched situation he’d better do something active towards it.