Beside him was a table holding an astrolabe and an exquisitely painted mask on a stick. In the background was a dark landscape of wooded hills cleanly divided by a silken waterfall. An angel, bright-winged, posed rather stiffly in the air and looked sternly down in the rather directorial way that angels have. A ray of grace beamed from its hand. The whole scene was bathed in a soft, feathery light. In the bottom right-hand corner were the initials ‘H.C.’.
‘I bought it twelve years ago in Dublin,’ said Laura. ‘A sale of country house furniture. Cost me all I had, but I told myself I’d eventually make a profit, or at least get my money back. In the event I could never bring myself to part with him.’
She had moved to stand beside Barnaby during this speech and reached out now, laying the tips of her fingers on the heavily beringed hand of the boy. The whole painting was crazed and spidery cracks ran over the ivory skin.
‘Doesn’t he look sad?’
‘Terribly sad, yes.’
The boy carried the weight of his heavy robes with sweet dignity but the wide-apart green eyes were dreamily mournful and the lovely curve of his mouth inclined more to sorrow than to joy. Barnaby had the sudden, deeply fanciful notion that his pallor could have come from recent tears.
‘How old do you think he is?’ asked Laura.
‘I would have said fifteen or so, except for these.’ He pointed to the delicate, well-shaped hands. ‘They belong to a young man.’
‘Yes. I wonder about him and because I’ll never know I make things up. That his parents are insisting on a dynastic marriage with someone he hates. That he reigns over a kingdom struck down by plague. That the court necromancer has him in thrall. Whatever the reason, I feel sure his heart is breaking.’
And that, thought the chief inspector, as his ears picked up the sound of a delicate crash, as of many falling china fragments, is not all. Mrs Hutton appeared not to have noticed. Moments later Troy eased open the door with his foot and came in with a tray.
The coffee was delicious, though lukewarm as the filters would not fit the dish-like cups and Troy had had to hold them over the cups one at a time while the stuff dripped through. He gave Mrs Hutton the freshest.
As they sat sipping Barnaby sought to bring the conversation back to that summer afternoon when she had called on Hadleigh and stolen (although of course he did not describe it so) his likeness. But she got more upset and started shouting that she had had enough.
‘Please I’m almost through—’
‘You’re almost through?’
‘Surely you want to help us discover—’
‘How can you ask me that? Me of all people.’ Her face was white with outrage. She threw back the heavy mane of tangled hair and glared at him, then made as if to rise, appeared overcome by giddiness and fell back into her seat.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Hutton?’
‘I’ve taken a pill. You woke me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Are you allowed to do this? Just turn up at someone’s house and . . . browbeat them?’
‘I’ve no wish at all to distress you—’
‘Then go away. That’s the simple bloody answer to that. Just go away.’
Laura covered her face with her hands. Although there were three people, one of them extremely large, in the tiny room she appeared physically isolated, as if her misery had thrown up an invisible barrier.
Barnaby, in a quiet explanatory tone, said, ‘The point is that you, more than anyone else, are in a unique position to be able to assist us.’
‘Oh?’ She looked at him with grudging interest. ‘In what way?’
‘The chest of drawers where you found the photograph was always kept locked. Whoever killed him took everything that was in it away. Obviously to discover someone who has actually seen what was inside—’
‘But I didn’t. I’d only just opened the drawer when I heard them coming back. I grabbed the picture and ran.’
‘Wasn’t there anything else in there apart from the shoe box?’
‘Some plastic boxes with fitted lids. The sort you keep salad in. Or left-over food.’
‘Did you notice any of the other photographs? The one on top, for instance?’
‘No.’
‘Could I see the one you do have?’
‘I burned it the morning after I saw his . . . girlfriend. Threw it in the Raeburn with a basket of soggy tissues. I regret it now, of course.’ Slowly she put the coffee down and her face in the shadows was distraught. ‘Dreadfully. It was all I had of him.’
‘It would assist us if you could describe it.’
‘I can’t possibly imagine how.’