Written in Blood(84)

‘I’d’ve thought that quite plain, Honoria.’ Amy’s stomach churned. She was beginning to feel sick. ‘I want to - I’m going to - leave.’

‘You can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ In spite of the chill Amy’s hair was damp with perspiration. Struggling to brace herself against the tyranny of the past, she slowly looked up.

Honoria appeared stunned. Her stony grey eyes, in which Amy could not recall ever having seen a single flash of emotion, shone with what seemed very much like panic.

‘You must stay here. Where I can . . .’

Honoria running out of verbal steam? Another first. Amy, cautiously testing the temperature of this unfamiliar atmosphere, said, ‘Where you can work me half to death for nothing.’

‘No, no,’ replied Honoria quickly. ‘Where I can . . . keep an eye on you. I promised Ralph I would.’

There was such an improvisational air about the last few words that Amy felt sure they were false. And yet what was more natural than that Ralph would have commended his poverty-stricken wife into the care of his only living relative? Amy tried to believe it, wanted to believe it. But wanting, she discovered, was not enough.

‘I hope you will reconsider,’ said Honoria. Her mouth went into some sort of strange spasm. It was as if it held a square obstacle that was trying to force its way past the tight round O of her thin lips. Eventually it succeeded. ‘Please.’

Amy was conscious of a great dismay. She had actually screwed her courage to the sticking place. Had seen the door that led to freedom standing ajar. Must it now be slammed forever in her face?

‘I’ve been thoughtless.’ Honoria compounded her mysterious felony. ‘So used to the cold I don’t notice. We must light a fire. And I’ll sort out that boiler. Order some coke and really get it going.’

She was moving away as if the matter was settled. Amy couldn’t bear it. She wanted to stop her. To cry out that the boiler didn’t matter nor the lighting of fires. That it was all too late and her mind was made up. Tomorrow she would be packing and by the next day, gone.

But even as she called, ‘Honoria?’ the library door closed and she was once more alone.





Barnaby sat behind his desk, rumbling. Mindful of his starter at Bunter’s he had consumed only a ham salad in the canteen at lunchtime, cutting the pink and white meat, already paper thin, into even smaller portions and carving up the tomatoes - finding himself in the ridiculous position of eating something he didn’t really want while at the same time trying to make it last.

Troy, sitting opposite, had lowered cottage pie, peas, double chips, apricot crumble, two Kit Kats and a huge beaker of Coke which must have given the two young girls on a boat some stick.

‘I don’t know where you put it all. You must have hollow legs.’

Troy regarded the extremely large figure facing him with some sympathy. It was all that cooking that had started it. The sergeant had been quite perturbed when he first discovered the governor’s new hobby, for it had struck him as more than a touch on the bendy side. But then he discovered, via a new sitcom, that all the world’s greatest chefs were men, which not only figured but went a considerable way towards allaying his suspicions. For it stood to reason they couldn’t all be poofters.

Now he watched as Barnaby got up and started prowling around, staring at screens over their operatives’ shoulders, snatching up any phone within an arm’s length the second it rang, chatting to the statements reader, interrogating researchers. Keeping busy not just because that was his nature but because he hoped, by so doing, to banish from his mind the image of the calorifically engorged automat squatting a mere few yards away.

‘Water’s very good,’ said Troy.

‘What?’

‘Maureen drinks a lot of water. When she’s trying to lose weight.’

‘Just mind your own bloody business - all right?’

Barnaby turned and walked back to his patch and Troy, quite unoffended, followed. He perched on the edge of the desk and said, ‘I’ve had a thought.’

‘Well treat it gently. It’s in a strange place.’

‘About this visit of Max Jennings. I was wondering if it wasn’t a coincidence that his name came up at that writers’ meeting. We know now about Laura Hutton’s feelings. What if - even before she knew he wasn’t Mr Spotless - she was getting cheesed off at being rejected. And invited Jennings out of spite.’

‘That presupposes she knew the man. Or at least was aware of the effect his visit might have on Hadleigh.’

‘Stranger things have happened. You’ve said yourself, if we put all the coincidences we come across in a book no one’d ever believe it.’