The Perfect Daughter by Gillian Linscott Read Free Book Online Page A

remembered that her lodgings, on that first visit, had been decorated with little souvenirs from home – a framed photograph of her parents and brother, a painting of the estuary, a pennant that looked as if it came from a sailing dinghy.
    â€˜Do you have to do that?’
    â€˜I can’t leave it to Alexandra. I could take them when I have to go down for the inquest.’
    â€˜Do you want me to come to the inquest with you?’
    â€˜All the way to Devon from Manchester? Why?’
    â€˜You might want a friend there.’
    â€˜It’s all right, I’ve been to inquests before.’
    I don’t know if he was hurt, but he went quiet for a while. I hadn’t meant to snap at him, but I was surprised he was so concerned. All I had to do was describe how I found her. It would be the coroner’s job and the jurors’ to draw conclusions, not mine. In spite of that, I couldn’t help worrying away at it, trying to visualise it. Walk into the boathouse, into the shadows. Salt water lapping against the walls, dinghies and rowing boats floating. It would be brighter than I remembered it, with the tide up and light reflecting from the water. There’d be plenty of rope in a boathouse, she’d know where to find it, and the girl who sailed a dinghy better than her brother would tie seamanlike knots. Stand on the wooden walkway, throw one end of a rope over a roof beam. It might take two or three tries, but she’d be efficient at that as well. Tie the rope, leaving a long end hanging down. Knot a noose, then sit down on the walkway and tie your feet to a plank of wood, firmly round the ankles so that they won’t get loose. They’d been good knots. I’d struggled to undo them before I realised it wasn’t any use. Then what? Noose round neck and push off into the water. You’d keep upright, couldn’t prevent yourself doing it. Her hands hadn’t been tied. They’d close round the rope that went up to the beam above her head, while her feet floated on the water. So she’d stay there, conscious, waiting for the tide to go out, feeling the tug of it on the plank, first a twitch then a drag that pulled her legs and body out towards the silver expanse of water that was getting narrower all the time. She’d surely fight it. Even if you wanted to die, you’d fight it. But sooner or later, the strength would drain out of your arms like the tide draining out of the creeks, and the noose would tighten.
    Bill said, ‘Do you think she hoped somebody might come and save her?’
    So he’d been thinking too.
    â€˜Who? Nobody knew she was there. Her parents thought she was still in London. Her brother was away.’
    â€˜There’s an element of gambling in some suicides, don’t you think? If anybody in the world loves me, I’ll be saved.’
    â€˜But to stack the odds so much against herself? If there’s anything that’s certain, it’s tides. She grew up with that.’
    â€˜You sound angry with her.’
    â€˜I am, if—’
    â€˜If what?’
    I didn’t answer. After a while we got up and started to stroll back across the Heath.
    â€˜Boris Godunov this evening?’
    â€˜Why not?’
    After all, we did have a victory over the police to celebrate, only I wasn’t as happy about that as I should have been. A suicide insults everybody left alive. All the things you think matter, from a great cause to the next cup of tea, hadn’t counted for anything in the suicide’s eyes. Devalued currency.
    â€˜What’s going on there?’ Bill said.
    We were back near the funfair. At first I thought Harry Black and his mother at the sausage cart were just having a rush of good business, then I heard the raised angry voices, saw the cart rocking and realised it was nothing as innocent as that. There was a chant going up.
    â€˜Ger-man spies. Dir-ty Ger-man spies.’
    Above the heads of the