“I guess I’ve seen enough,” Conrad said. “If there’s anything to find, your boys will find it.”
“I’ll put that little sentiment in my birthday book and show it to you the next time I pass up a clue,” Bardin said. “Okay, we’ll go down to the pool.”
He went over to the casement windows, opened them and stepped out on to the broad terrace. The full moon was rising and shedding its hard, cold light over the sea. The garden was heavy with the scents of flowers. In the far distance an illuminated fountain made a fairy-land scene below them.
“She went for lights and pretty colours, didn’t she?” Bardin said. “But it didn’t get her anywhere. It’s a pretty crude way to finish your life: having your head hacked off and your belly ripped open. I guess even all this display of wealth wouldn’t compensate me for an end like that.”
“The trouble with you, Sam,” Conrad said quietly, “is you’re class conscious. There are plenty of guys who would envy you your way of life.”
“Show them to me,” Bardin returned with a sour smile. “I’ll trade with them any day of the week. It’s easy for you to shoot off your mouth. You’ve got a glamorous wife, and she can take your mind off things. I’d put up with a shabby home and lousy meals if I’d got me a little glamour. You want to look over my garden fence when the washing is hanging out if you’re interested in female museum pieces. I bet your wife goes in for those nylon nifties that keep knocking my eye out every time I pass a shop window. That’s as close as I’ll ever get to them.”
Conrad felt a sudden wave of irritation run through him. He knew Bardin’s wife. She wasn’t anything to look at; she wasn’t smart, but at least she did try to run her home which was more than Janey ever did.
“You don’t know when you’re well off,” he said curtly, and walked down the gently sloping steps towards the swimming-pool.
III
Close by the forty-foot-high diving-board, Doc Holmes, the two interns, a photographer and four policemen stood on the edge of the swimming-pool, looking down at the water. That section of the water was dyed crimson, the rest of the water was a vivid blue.