‘Or how to mow the lawn without bringing on a coronary.’
‘You wouldn’t be mocking my son’s career?’
‘Making light of your concern. His generation don’t know what the next trend is, but they take it on. I admire them. And Jerry must be OK if he gives up his time to a good cause.’
‘It’s quite a commitment,’ she said, nodding. ‘He visits most of the hospitals in the area. The books are collected mainly by young people in his church, all in nice condition. The books, I mean.’ She laughed. ‘Well, I guess the young people must be in good condition, too.’
‘He is, obviously.’
‘Yes, I suspect some of the female patients look forward to seeing him with his trolley.’
‘If he needs more books I might be able to find some.’ He’d just remembered Steph’s Agatha Christies at home. She would have wanted them used for a good cause.
‘That would be great. It’s run like a library, but they lose a fair number. It’s properly managed, though, from a depot on some trading estate. Now what about you?’ she said. ‘Are you happy in your work?’
‘Me, I’m stuck in a rut.’
‘But you like being in the police, don’t you?’
‘It’s what I do. I try and make a fist of it. Yours is the ideal job, turning your hobby into a thriving business.’
She looked pleased. ‘Want to see where it happens?’
‘I’d love to.’
She led him across the hall and up a wide staircase. The wall to their right was lined with photos of Edwardian beauties in fine clothes, but he was watching the swing of Paloma’s hips as she ascended. Maybe she took lessons from her son, because she moved well and had a good figure.
At the top was a room that must have been two large bedrooms knocked into one and they were lined with shelves. Books, filing boxes and bound magazines filled the space from floor to ceiling with an impression that everything had its place. Many were old, yet there was no smell, no sign of dust. At one end facing a window was a huge antique desk, its surface clear.
‘That’s what I use when I’m opening books, looking for items,’ she said. ‘The office bit is through here.’ She opened a door between the shelves and showed him a room set up with computer, printer and scanner, photocopier, filing cabinets and phone.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, looking at a square screen with some kind of winding gear at its base.
‘My microfilm viewer. I have a run of the Illustrated London News up to 1940 and various journals too big to store next door. About a thousand reels.’
‘I’m reeling, too.’
‘There’s another room with scrapbooks, but I’m not taking you in there. I’m ashamed of it. They come in all sizes and they’re the devil to keep tidy.’
‘You obviously like order,’ he said thinking of the tip that was his own work space at home.
‘Without it, I’d disappear under a million newspaper cuttings.’
‘So this is where you tracked down the Muller cut-down. It didn’t take you long.’
‘It was in one of my fashion encyclopedias. It’s funny. Top hats were supposed to be the mark of a well- dressed man, yet they have quite a sinister reputation.’
‘As worn by undertakers?’
‘True, but I’m talking about what happened to the people who made them. They treated the felt with salts of mercury, so they were breathing in poisonous fumes. They’d get the shakes and twitch. That’s how the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’ is supposed to have originated.’
‘I thought that was Alice in Wonderland.’
‘No it goes back a good thirty years before Lewis Carroll.’
‘I’ve learned something new, then.’
‘Shall we go downstairs? I’ve got a quiche warming up. I thought it might go nicely with the beer.’
The living quarters were on a scale he’d not often seen. The kitchen was like a Zanussi showroom, big enough for a double-door fridge to slot in among fitted units and not be noticed until Paloma took out a bowl of salad. Two trays were ready on the work surface in the centre.
‘As it’s a nice evening I thought we’d eat on the terrace.’
‘Seems a good idea,’ he said, as if he was well used to eating on terraces.
‘As I warned you in Strada the other night, I don’t have much time for cooking.’
‘Heating up the quiche is more than I do,’ he said.
‘You warm up those baked beans you told me about, don’t you?’
‘The beans, yes,’
‘So don’t undersell yourself, Peter Diamond. I have no doubt you have talents you keep well hidden.’
They took the trays through a sitting room bigger than some hotel foyers and set them outside on a wrought-iron table under a green and white striped canopy. The garden, all trimmed lawns and well-stocked borders, stretched away to a grove of beech trees. No other house was in sight.
She took champagne from an icebox and asked him to open it.
‘Funny kind of beer.’
‘You don’t have to drink it.’ She produced a can of Miller Lite from the same box.
‘I can’t let a lady drink champagne alone.’ He popped the cork and poured two glasses and handed her one. He lifted his own. ‘To my gracious hostess.’
She said, ‘You have a nice way with a woman.’
He laughed. ‘Then I must have learned something in more than fifty years.’
‘Did you go to a co-ed school?’
‘Actually, no. I grew up with a sister. That makes a difference. And I was married twelve years. Steph took me on and I won’t say she turned the frog into Prince Charming, but I’m not the yob I once was. What else? My boss is a woman of a totally different sort. I treat her as a challenge. And the best detective I ever had in my team was called Julie.’
‘No stranger to the fair sex, then. Must be useful in your work.’
‘You mean understanding the criminal mind?’
She smiled. ‘Not all women are baddies, are they?’
‘No, but I have to be on my guard.’
‘Against feminine wiles?’
‘I try not to get sidetracked.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re speaking of your work in the police?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when you’ve left the job behind, as you put it to Jerry, are you just as cautious?’
‘I wouldn’t be here if I was.’
‘That’s true.’ She lifted her glass again. ‘Here’s to leaving the job behind.’
‘As often as possible.’ He lifted his and touched hers. When they’d drunk some he topped up her glass.
‘Give yourself some.’
He smiled. ‘What’s left is yours. I brought the car with me.’
‘And it wouldn’t do for a policeman to get over the limit. So you don’t actually leave the job behind.’
‘Anyone in charge of a car should watch his intake.’
‘Now you’re talking like a policeman. No, that’s unfair.’ She gave a light slap to the back of her hand. ‘I’d do precisely the same, except if I’m going for a few drinks with someone I travel by taxi.’
After they’d finished the quiche, she brought a selection of sorbets. ‘You mentioned your wife again,’ she said when she’d served them, ‘but you haven’t said much about her.’
‘Steph died three years ago,’ he said without elaborating.
‘And you told me you have no children? By choice?’
‘She miscarried several times.’
She looked at him for a moment in silence. ‘That must have been dreadful for you both.’
‘More so for Steph,’ he said, remembering, and he started to speak more freely. ‘Each time she went for four or five months and then at one routine appointment the medical professionals listened for the heartbeat or did a
