‘How very sad,’ said the chief inspector, meaning it. Then, risking alienation, ‘But how interesting.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Amy, looking somewhat shamefaced. ‘I used to wonder about him a lot. Writers are awful. So nosy. I’d make up different pasts for him. Different histories.’
‘But he was quite forthcoming about his background, I understand.’
‘Oh, I didn’t believe any of that.’
‘Really?’ said Barnaby, leaning very slightly forward.
‘It was so sparse. Like one of his stories. True life’s all muddle and mess, isn’t it? You can’t just list a few neat things and say, “This is who I am”. It was as if’ - Amy tuckered her brows again - ‘as if he’d learnt it.’
Even as Barnaby smiled and nodded he wondered why he was feeling quite so pleased with this conversation, for there was little new in it. He decided it was because he enjoyed looking at, and listening to, Mrs Lyddiard. Her sweet round face and mop of curly hair reminded him of his wife, though Amy was ingenuously friendly where Joyce was tartly subtle.
Amy got up to put her cup and saucer on the desk and noticed the large, leather-framed photograph with its back to her.
‘Do you mind if . . . ?’
Barnaby said, ‘Of course not.’
She turned the frame round and said, as everyone, without exception always did, ‘Good heavens. What an absolutely beautiful child.’
‘She’s grown up now.’
‘And that’s your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Easy to see which side—’ Amy broke off, crimsoned and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Gosh, how rude. I’m so sorry. What must you . . . Oh dear. I don’t know where to . . . Ohh . . .’
Barnaby burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. Her confusion was so overwhelmingly complete it was comical. Then he stopped, for she was clearly genuinely upset.
‘Please, Mrs Lyddiard, don’t be put out. If I had a fiver for every time I’ve heard that remark I could retire tomorrow.’
‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’
‘Not at all. The first occasion was the midwife.’
Amy seemed almost about to smile, changed her mind and went back to her chair. More to ease the moment than because he was really interested, Barnaby asked if she had children. Amy shook her head.
‘For a time it didn’t seem important. We were very happy and it seemed enough. Then, when I was in my late thirties, I started having second thoughts. But Ralph dissuaded me.’ She pressed her hands together, the fingers interlocking with tension, tugging against each other. ‘I thought afterwards he must have had some sort of premonition. Perhaps knew, even then, how ill he was and didn’t want to leave me with a young child. But he was wrong. I’d give anything now - anything - to have a part of him still with me.’
Barnaby nodded with a sympathy that was far from feigned. He could not imagine, could not bear to imagine, life without his daughter. They might not see, or even hear from her, for weeks on end, but he had to know that she was out there somewhere. Living, breathing, breaking hearts.
‘He had cancer.’ Amy sounded introspective and so distant she might have been talking to herself. ‘That is, he had chronic hepatitis that wasn’t diagnosed and treated in time. We were so far away from a hospital you see. Or a good doctor.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘All the awful people who live forever. Murderers and terrorists. Army generals who won’t let food trucks through, while Ralph . . .’ Tears started from Amy’s eyes and she brushed them fiercely away. ‘The dearest man. It’s so unfair. Honoria blamed me.’
Barnaby released a sound of demurring protest reinforced by a disbelieving movement of his head.
‘It’s true. She said the most terrible thing, the cruellest thing. I’ve never told anyone - not even Sue. He’d been unconscious for days in that hospital in Spain and we’d been taking turns to sit with him. I’d been resting and I was going back along the corridor towards his room when Honoria came out of the doctor’s office. She gripped my arms - I had the marks for days - and screamed in my face. “If you’d loved him enough he wouldn’t have died.” It was the most dreadful shock. I didn’t know he’d gone, you see. It happened while I was asleep. It was the only time I’ve ever seen her show any emotion.
‘She’s taken him back now. The headstone has his name and a single space for hers. His room with all his childhood things is permanently locked. She’s always in there. I hear her sometimes reading out his letters or school reports. But none of that matters really. I sit by his grave and talk to him and we’re as close as we ever were. All the rest is trimmings.’