Yet surely Honoria had not believed her brother would never marry, that she could somehow ‘mother’ him to the end of his days? How against nature this would be. Amy imagined Ralph, handsome, light of heart, slowly transformed into a sad middle-aged bachelor looking after a crabby old woman seventeen years his senior. But perhaps, if he had stayed at home, she would not have become crabby.
Amy had really looked forward to meeting her beloved’s only relative. She had imagined many visits of quiet happiness when they would go through family albums together while Honoria filled in the background, repeating old jokes and Ralph’s infant malapropisms - scenes such as Ralph enjoyed when he visited Amy’s parents. But the reality had been quite different. Honoria had greedily taken over Amy’s husband the minute they arrived, sucking him into ‘do you remember’ conversations with an insatiable and, it seemed to Amy, rather unhealthy relish. She had been reminded of those doting parents who say of their infant ‘Couldn’t you just eat him?’
She saw why Ralph had to get away. And stay away if he was to survive and grow. Before she had got to know Honoria Amy had urged Ralph to see more of his sister. Write more frequently. But sometimes, when they came to England, Ralph would not even let Honoria know they were in the country. Amy had never told her sister-in-law this. She had an unwillingness to inflict pain that Honoria said was the sure sign of a weakling.
The springs of the grandmother clock, coughing softly, recalled Amy to an unhappy present. It was ten o’clock, time for the news.
Honoria got up clumsily, jarring the chair back and almost overturning the lamp and switched on something that could only be called a wireless. A maple bird’s-eye cabinet with bakelite knobs, fawn silk fretted panels and valves that had to be let warm up. Honoria always stared at it fiercely when it was animate as if listening alone would not give full value. Amy closed Old Sins, slipped the book under her jumper and went to make the cocoa.
She measured two cups of liquid and put the pan on. It had to be half and half for there were only two pints of milk a day and she had made some queen cakes that morning. Honoria was so mean. Yesterday, after Amy had scraped the very last smear of Marmite from the jar to make lunch-time sandwiches, Honoria had filled it with hot water, swilled it round and put the residue aside for gravy.
Ralph had said it was because she remembered the war, but Amy didn’t believe that for a minute. Her own mother had lived through the same period and had been the most profligate of women, hurling butter and cream into her cooking, leaving soap to dissolve in the bath and tossing left-overs straight into the bin.
At Gresham House even a single uneaten sprout would be placed in the cavernous Electrolux and covered with a saucer, to be usefully incorporated in some future repast. It would turn up, sometimes days later, squatting next to a Welsh rarebit like a soft little green boulder or bulking out a pilchard omelette.
Amy snatched at the pan just in time and made the drinks. She was tempted to a queen cake, but Honoria might have counted them, as she had the Butter Osbornes last week.
Amy’s fingers strayed to the locket with Ralph’s picture that always hung around her neck. She wished with hopeless, helpless longing that he was beside her. Then all the penny-pinching would have been merely a lark and the rambling, stone-cold barn of a house filled with warmth and light and sunshine. But Ralph lay beneath the yew trees in his grave and oh! might Amy have cried, had she been at all familiar with the phrase, the difference to me.
Barnaby once more made his way to the table at the far end of the incident room, taking all its attention with him. Those seated turned aside from their computers, rolling their heads and hunching their shoulders to relieve tension. Footsloggers perched on the ends of desks or leant against the wall, talking amongst themselves and popping cans from the automat. Inspector Meredith, sleek in his Tommy Nutter tweeds and moleskin waistcoat, had found himself a nice-looking chair and positioned it prominently.
Barnaby opened with a brief summary of the post-mortem. He then recapped on his interview with Laura as did Troy on his with Brian Clapton. Then Barnaby spoke again.
‘We had news a short time ago about Hadleigh’s car. No surprises. A straight TDA. Good and wrecked and dumped in the river. We should have the SOCO report on Plover’s Rest first thing in the morning and there’s been a fax from Jennings’ publishers, which I’ve condensed, giving details of his background. Sergeant?’
Troy cleared his throat. ‘Born and brought up in Scotland in the early fifties. State educated. Degree in eng . . . um . . . ing . . .’