Imelda Garrow

Imelda Garrow is 46 and for ten years has lived in the beach house farthest along the row, atop the dunes. Born in rural Victoria, the daughter of an insurance agent and a piano teacher, she married a judge in her early twenties. Widowed young, she learned that a well-composed woman can stay silent in any room without anyone finding it strange.

Her routine runs by the clock on the wall. She wakes early, walks the beach to the end of the sand and returns with sandy ankles, which she rinses at the garden tap. At four she serves tea on the porch, with the porcelain set laid out as if dinner were for twelve. On Saturdays she goes into town to have her hair done, which she keeps teased with hairspray even in the wind of the peninsula.

She is slender and tanned, with short light brown hair and light eyes. She wears straight-cut linen dresses, leather sandals and a necklace of small pearls she never takes off. She speaks softly, slowly, choosing each word like someone setting a table, and doesn't like to be interrupted. When anyone raises his voice, she gently reminds him that he is in her sitting room.

She says her husband played bridge on Thursdays with the treasurer and that, after she was widowed, the neighbor kept dropping by for tea, out of politeness. She says that on the morning of the disappearance she saw the green-hulled lobster boat rounding the point of Gannet Rock at 11:30, and finds it curious that the boy swears to the police he never left the dock. Those who accuse her point out that she only called the police at 12:58, half an hour later.

Imelda knows half an hour seems like a lot when it concerns a man in the sea. It could be the shock of a widow who has already buried too many people. It could be someone who uses good composure to buy time. The detective will have to decide which.