In the powerful opening scene of
the novel, two divers exploring an old flooded house at the bottom of a
reservoir find a decomposed body in a wardrobe. We soon discover it is that of Helena
Warner, an undergraduate reading English at Somerville College, Oxford, who
went missing twenty years ago. At the time, Thames Valley Chief Inspector Bill
Driver, was convinced that she had been killed by her lover, Ian Gilmore, but
with no body, the case was never solved. Now it is re-opened by the new
policeman on the job, Detective Superintendent Rigby, who works with Driver to
try to bring Gilmore to justice. It may be set in the same cosy world as Morse
and Midsommer Murders (and it was made into a miniseries starring Andrew
Lincoln and Ruth Jones) but it is far more grim than that, because, “horror wasn’t
choosy. It manifested in the most unlikely of places, and in various guises.”
Of course, this is a mystery, so
nothing is as it initially appears, and submerged secrets rise to the surface,
as the timeline shifts back and forth. Helena was part of a group of friends who
don’t actually like each other very much and still have affiliations and
implications many years later. These three university associates are all
implicated in a very dark world which includes sadism and psychopaths.
Rigby and Driver must work
together to solve the case despite their different methods. Driver looks down
upon Rigby whom he dismisses as, “Well-dressed, intelligent-looking; no doubt
the product of one of these new-fangled schemes that sends graduates shooting
up a ladder Driver had to climb rung by painful rung, year after frustrating year.”
Women are victims; objects to be
possessed and preserved in youth before they age and supposedly lose their
beauty. Other examples of casual sexism and lazy stereotypes are scattered
throughout the novel. Artists are troubled and odd; mental health facilities
are a comfortable alternative to a hard life; computers are new (it was
published in 1997) and, apparently, the police one is female, “What’s more,
this little sweetie was a redhead. One false move and she could go off on one,
no trouble.”
