The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell

lower flat’s hallway. Their own front door was halfway along the wall and both flats shared the common front door. She stood in this hall by the front door and looked up the stairs. They were unchanged. Here her mother and she had come in from shopping. A table stood there once, a console table, usually with a bowl of flowers on it. They had put their shoppingbags down on the floor by this table and, hearing a footstep, looked up the stairs and saw Heather.
    Ismay went back inside and switched the tape recorder on again.
    â€˜Heather came downstairs. She was wearing a pink cotton dress and the front of it was wet, the bodice and the skirt. Her shoes were wet. I don’t remember what she said. Maybe she didn’t say anything. My mother said, “Why are you so wet, Heather? Where have you been?”
    â€˜Then Heather said, “I’ve been in the bathroom. You’d better come.” We went upstairs. My mother went first. She told me afterwards she thought one of the pipes was leaking. We’d had trouble with it before. We went into the bathroom. I don’t remember if there was water everywhere. I suppose there must have been. The bath was full of water and Guy was in it. He was lying under the water and he was dead.’
    That was the first time she had ever seen a man’s naked body. Strange that the first one she had seen should be a dead man’s. Dead, Guy looked very young, a boy. Beatrix screamed once, then fell on her knees and the crying and muttering began. She clapped both hands over her mouth. Ismay looked and then looked away, trembling, shaking all over. She stumbled back into her mother’s bedroom and fell on the unmade bed. Beatrix came in and silent Heather with her. That was how it had been. Ismay returned to the tape recorder.
    â€˜My mother asked Heather what had happened and Heather said she didn’t know. Then she asked her what made her go into the bathroom. Neither of us ever went into that bathroom. The last thing Heather would have done was go in there where Guy would have been naked. But she had. It didn’t occur to me for a while that Heather might have had something to do with that death. Heather said nothing in answer to my mother’squestion. Then my mother asked her if she’d been in her own bedroom when Guy got up. “I went into the bathroom,” Heather said. “I was in there a bit and he was dead. He was like he is now.” My mother screamed aloud when Heather said that and she clutched at me. She said to me, “Phone a doctor. No, phone for an ambulance. Dial nine-nine-nine.”
    â€˜I couldn’t. I’d lost my voice. After a bit my mother phoned Pam and Pam came. I think it was she who phoned for an ambulance. The police came eventually. I don’t know who sent for them. It was evening by then. There was a detective inspector and a detective constable, I think. The inspector had a name like a bird, Sparrow or Peacock but not one of those. I can’t remember anything about the constable except that he was young.
    â€˜An ambulance came with two paramedics and they took Guy’s body away. Or it may not have been an ambulance. There may have been a doctor. I don’t remember. Before the police came Mum said to Heather, “These people who are coming will ask. The police will have to come and they will ask.” Heather didn’t say anything. I think she was terrified. Mum thought for a moment and then she said, “You were out with us. All three of us were shopping. You complained about Issy taking so long trying clothes on.” Heather gave her such a strange look. She looked like an old old woman for a moment. “Did I?” she said.
    â€˜It was like a game. I got into the spirit of it, me, aged fifteen. I said, “You were fed up because they hadn’t got a blazer in your size.” “All right,” she said. Mum said, “No, Heather, it wasn’t like Issy