Written in Blood(149)

Barnaby listened to all this with a glad heart but, as she was about to ring off, thought it wise to inject a cautionary note.

‘We may have a bit of a problem this end, Cully.’ As he spoke his hand rested gently on Kilmowski, asleep on his shoulder and gradually slipping off. ‘Regarding the kitten. I’m afraid your mother’s getting terribly fond of it.’





‘You don’t have to go in, Amy.’

‘I do, I do have to go in.’ But she could not turn the handle.

They were on the landing outside Ralph’s room. It was the first time Amy had entered Gresham House since the terrible night when she had so nearly died.

Walking through the kitchen, crossing the clammy, weed-infested flagstones of the hall, climbing the stairs, had been bad. But nothing like as bad as this.

‘Shall I open it?’

‘If you like.’ But when Sue stretched out her hand Amy cried, ‘Wait a minute!’

She was having second thoughts. Or rather twentieth, thirtieth and even fiftieth thoughts, for she had imagined this moment at least as many times. Now she asked herself why she was so determined. What sensible reason could there possibly be?

After all, he wouldn’t be there. She would see the dappled horse with the worn leather saddle and scarlet reins that he had picked her up and put her on the first time he had brought her home. And the fire guard with narrow brass trim. Books and models and the beautiful scientific drawings at which he had excelled. But Ralph, or ‘the remains’ as the police had insisted on referring to him, was resting with his sister beneath the yew trees in St Chad’s churchyard.

Sue had tried to understand what she viewed as Amy’s amazing benevolence in permitting this, but without success. In her friend’s place she would have arranged for Honoria to be cremated then flushed the ashes down the loo. Eventually Sue came to the conclusion that Amy, after the discovery that her husband was not only bisexual but occasionally unfaithful, had had a change of heart about him, but she was mistaken. Amy merely felt that if someone was prepared to kill, however madly or wrongly, to avenge the only person they had ever loved, the least you could do was let them rest in the same grave.

Sue now shuffled her feet, coughed to draw attention to the fact that time was passing and glanced sideways. Amy’s face had become tight and expressionless and she was screwing up her eyes as if braced for some scene of visual devastation. A second later she flung open the door.

The candelabra were still there. The room was full of them. The whole place had been blazing with light apparently, like an altar in some great Romanesque cathedral. Hundreds of candles. Their congealed drippings sticking to the floor and all over the furniture.

Ralph’s likeness gazed and smiled and laughed from every aspect of the room. As a baby, toddler and young boy. Many of the photographs were propped up, unframed, against the candle holders. It was a miracle the place hadn’t burned down.

Amy had been afraid the room would smell, but there was only the ever-present fragrance of mildew. Someone, perhaps the police, must have opened the windows. They had been very kind, as had everyone, especially Dennis Rainbird, the funeral director. He it was, after the first coffin had been raised, who had tactfully disposed of the load of heavy books it contained. He had also made a point, when Amy had refused to visit his premises to view the dear departed, of assuring her that Mr Lyddiard had been most beautifully embalmed. He appeared to be under the impression that this would be a comfort.

‘This is where he was lying.’ Amy went across to a large refectory table in the centre of the room. ‘Under a white silk bedspread.’

Sue didn’t know how to respond. The whole story had struck her as so completely revolting that she had nearly passed out when Amy first told her. To think of Honoria up here talking to a corpse, perhaps even holding it - God. It didn’t bear thinking of.

‘Did I tell you he asked for me, in Spain, just before he died? She said I’d gone away.’

‘Amy - that’s terrible. But surely he’d know it wasn’t true.’

‘Oh yes. He knew her very well. It’s just . . . it would have been nice to say goodbye.’

Amy picked up a school report. One of many draped over the fire guard like little printed paper towels.

‘Bright but mischievous.’ ‘Distracts other pupils.’ ‘A definite gift for languages.’ ‘Needs to concentrate more.’ ‘A popular boy.’

‘Everyone liked him,’ said Amy. ‘It’s all down here.’

Sue’s feelings of intrusion and inadequacy deepened. Standing helplessly by she made a clumsy indefinite movement demonstrating a wish to comfort, then let her arms fall once more to her sides.