Emily put a hand to her mouth, looking as if she might be sick. She got to her feet and ran out of the room.
‘Oh, darling…’ Sophie rose as if to follow her.
‘Delayed shock,’ Joan said briskly. ‘I’ve seen it many times before. Time will be the healer. Drugs only delay things.’ She chomped on a slab of cake and smacked her lips.
Sophie sank down again. ‘Poor girl. She’s been very shaken up. Was she able to help?’
‘I think so. I’m trying to get a clearer idea of what Tina was doing in the forty-eight hours before she died.’
‘We almost saw her again, the evening before.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, she’d been going to come with Emily to our local book-shop where I was giving a talk about my last book. Apparently she was quite interested, and I told Emily she should come and have a meal with us afterwards. Only she decided at the last moment she couldn’t make it.’ She lifted the book Emily had been reading. ‘ The Woman in White. Oh dear.’
•
Donald Fotheringham rang Kathy as she got into her car. He was back in Scotland now, and apologised for leaving without saying goodbye. ‘I got word that one of my flock had passed away suddenly, and it was important for me to be here. I felt I’d really told you as much as I could.’
‘I’m glad you called, Donald. I was going to ring you. I believe Tina had been intending to go to a talk given by Emily’s mother on the Wednesday evening, but didn’t. Do you know what happened?’
‘Oh aye. I was invited too, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea, and to tell the truth I was feeling pretty exhausted by that stage. But those young women were tireless. Tina especially, she just kept on going. That’s why she missed the talk that evening-she wanted to stay at the library till it closed, though we’d been at it since first thing that morning. She said she thought she was getting somewhere, but as I told you, she didn’t share it with us.’
‘I see. And the next day?’
‘She seemed tired and frustrated. You know, I’ve been chatting to Bessie about what we were doing, following Marion’s trail all over London without really getting to the heart of the matter, and she said that it had been that way with Marion since she was a lassie. She would play hide-and-seek with her auntie, leaving little messages around the garden that Bessie had to follow. And later, as a teenager, she was awfy secretive. She had a china ornament in her room, an old balloon seller it was, and she hid letters inside it, though Bessie found them, sure enough.’
‘That ornament was in Marion’s house, Donald, but there was nothing hidden inside it.’
‘No, well, I’m sure her adult ways would have been more subtle. Perhaps we’ll never know the whole truth about Marion.’
‘We’ll certainly do our best. Thanks again, anyway.’
‘But there was something else I wanted to tell you about. I went to see Marion’s mother before I left, and gave her my phone number, just in case she needed to get in touch. Well, to my surprise she did, just an hour ago. It seems she’s become somewhat disenchanted with her husband Keith, and wanted to get something off her chest. She told me that he and his army friend, Crouch his name is, have a wee racket going, robbing the dead.’
‘Pardon?’
‘They read the death notices in the paper, then visit the deceased’s house while everyone is at the funeral. A particularly unsavoury kind of thieving, you might say. Apparently they’ve been doing it for a long time-since they were in Ireland together with the army. Sheena has known about it for some time too, only now it’s become a little personal.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I rather gathered that Sheena is hoping for a windfall following her daughter’s death, and is concerned that Keith will try to get his hands on it. The thing is, when Keith studies the funeral notices, he marks the ones he intends to visit with a cross. Sheena has kept a note of many of their names. She wouldn’t want to contact you herself, but was quite happy for me to do it on her behalf, if you were interested.’
‘Oh yes, Donald,’ Kathy said. ‘I’m interested.’
•
Kathy couldn’t find Pip at first in the offices of the British Library, hidden behind a mound of books, and when she finally dug her out, the DC blinked and looked disoriented, as if surfacing from a great depth.
‘Blimey, you been here long, boss?’
‘No, just arrived. How’s it going? Brock said you were doing a great job.’
‘Did he?’ She brightened a little. ‘Not sure if I am, but still.’
‘Show me.’
Pip took her through the books she’d checked so far, without discovering anything that looked significant.
Kathy said, ‘I’ve just learned that Tina spent last Wednesday evening in here, working on something, and I’m wondering what it was.’
‘Wednesday… here we are.’ Pip showed her the printout. ‘Just two requests.’
Kathy looked at the entries: the Haverlock diary and Sir Robert Harding’s second book about Bengal, After Midnight. ‘Have you looked at these?’
‘ After Midnight is here somewhere. Brock asked me about that. I haven’t seen the diary yet. Shall I ask them to get it?’
‘Yes, do that, and I’ll buy you a coffee while we’re waiting.’
When they returned from the cafe there was a note waiting on the desk: Request for Diary, author H. Haverlock, Add. 507861.86…. . NOT AVAILABLE.
They found a library assistant who said, ‘May be lost, or withdrawn for repairs.’
‘Or on loan to someone else?’ Kathy suggested.
The woman shook her head. ‘It’d say.’ She tapped at her computer for a moment. ‘No, it’s down as not yet returned by the last person who requested it.’
‘That would be Tina Flowers.’
Another shake of the head, her finger running across the screen. ‘She returned it last thing on Wednesday. The final request was the following day, the twelfth, at eight minutes past nine, as soon as we opened. By a Dr Anthony da Silva.’
Kathy thought. ‘Did he request anything else that day?’
Another search, then the woman showed them the entry on the screen: After Midnight: A Memoir of Bengal, 1947-71, author R. Harding, Add. 507861.103.
‘But we have that here,’ Kathy said. ‘Unless there’s more than one copy.’
‘No, that’s it. It was returned later that morning.’
‘So he asked for both the books that Tina had been investigating the previous evening, and now one of them is missing.’
‘How would he know what she’d requested?’ Pip asked. ‘Could he have accessed her records?’
‘No.’ More tapping. ‘But he was here that evening. See? He requested several books-about arsenic by the looks of it. Maybe he met her, saw what she was reading.’
‘It makes sense,’ Kathy said when they returned to Pip’s table. ‘He had finally traced the source of Marion’s revelations in her paper to the Cornell conference, and he knew that Tina had found it too.’
‘So he stole the book and murdered her. Kind of explains everything, doesn’t it?’ Pip said.
‘Looks like it.’ Kathy reached for the Harding memoir from the book pile, and opened it to a handwritten dedication on the inside cover: To my very dear friend Toby Havelock, a mischievous memoir, from one old India hand to another. Bob Harding. She flicked through the book. ‘And this, about the twentieth century, would have been of no interest to him.’
‘Brock found a reference to the Warrenders in there,’ Pip told her, and Kathy nodded.
‘Yes, he showed me a copy.’ She checked the index and read the passage again. ‘Marion must have found this while she was searching through that family collection, and noticed the reference.’ Kathy tried to imagine
