after she had let slip the fact of Maggie Crew having a daughter. ‘She’ll know it came from me,’ she’d said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. She’s barely speaking to me anyway these days.’ ‘Did you say a daughter?’ ‘Yes. Maggie had a little girl. It was about twenty years ago now. It wasn’t intended, far from it. Mags was a law student then. She didn’t believe in abortion - a relic of our Catholic upbringing, I’m afraid. So she had the child adopted - there was no way she could have raised her. It would have interfered too much with her plans for her career.’ Fry recalled Maggie’s comments about female police officers, and realized that she had probably been talking about her own situation. ‘And Mags never even achieved what she wanted. She reached a plateau. She ended up in a small town, instead of becoming a partner in a big city firm. And it was a small town no more than ten miles from where
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we were raised. She is never going to get any further away now. There’s some strange tie that she has to the area, though she would never admit it. She always thought I was the one who would stay around, and I would have agreed with her at one time. But when you reach a certain age you learn things about yourself -you learn that you’re not quite what other people always told you.’
‘Do you think your sister resents not getting further in her career?’
‘Well, I certainly think she started to realize she’d reached that plateau. Of course she did. And she resented the fact that I’d escaped, as she saw it. That I’d left her to look after Mum and Dad. She couldn’t move away then, you see - not without adding to her feelings of guilt.’
‘She doesn’t strike me as someone who feels guilty,’ said Fry.
‘Oh, she’s good at blaming other people. She blames everyone but herself for her lack of real success - her teachers, her colleagues, our parents, me. And any friends she might have left. She was always a difficult person to like, but she became so prickly that people began to leave her well alone.’
‘And the child? Do you think she feels guilty about the child?’
‘Well, what do you think?’ said Catherine brightly. And in that one sentence, Fry was able to fill in the background around her picture of Maggie’s sister - the background was full of children hanging on to her skirt and bringing her their latest treasures to look at. All the
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children would be little copies of Catherine. Fry nodded at the clarity of the image. The arrival of each child must have been like salt in the wound to Maggie. What was it she had said at Derwent Court the other day? ‘Perhaps I’ll wake up one day and discover I have a maternal instinct after all.’
‘I think, you know,’ said Catherine, ‘that Mags must have been wondering a great deal about the child. Wondering what she would be like now, and where she is. Wondering if she ever thought about her real mother.’
‘And wondering what it would be like now to have a daughter of her own, instead of being so alone?’ said Fry.
‘Exactly,’ said Catherine. ‘And there’s no one else she can blame for that, is there? No one but herself.’
Fry took a moment to readjust her assessment of Maggie Crew. She was seeing a different person, sensing a greater tragedy taking place in the darkened rooms of the apartment at Derwent Court than she had imagined until now.
Catherine Dyson must have wondered about the silence at the other end of the line. It was her turn to ask a question, and the astuteness of it took Diane Fry by surprise.
‘Have you been going to see my sister often?’ she asked.
‘Well, yes,’ said Fry. ‘You know the circumstances, don’t you?’
‘Of course. You’re doing your job, I see that. But …’ ‘Yes?’
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‘I can’t tell over the phone,’ said Catherine, ‘but may I ask how old you are?’
‘What on earth difference does that make?’ said Fry. ‘Oh, never mind,’ said Catherine hastily. ‘I’m sure it makes no difference at all.’
The offices of Quigley, Coleman & Crew were on Peveril Street. Diane Fry entered a reception area fronted by smoked plate glass. A blonde receptionist with a fake tan took her name without showing any interest in her warrant card, and took her time looking at a diary on her desk.
‘I’m sorry, Ms Crew is not available.’
‘What?’ Fry was brought up hard. She had thought of cancelling, true. But she had never got round to it. ‘What do you mean? I’ve got an appointment.’
The receptionist pretended to look at the diary. ‘I’m sorry, she’s cancelled it. Something came up. You know.’
The girl could hardly be bothered concealing her contempt for someone whose appointment had been cancelled at the last minute without telling her. She was obviously somebody of no importance.
‘Did she say why?’ asked Fry. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Where is she now?’ ‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Then give Ms Crew a message. You can do that, can’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
Fry leaned closer over the desk. ‘Tell her one thing.
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Tell her: “What if Jenny wasn’t enough for him either?”’ The girl looked nervous. ‘I don’t understand that.’ ‘You don’t have to. Just write it down and give it to your boss.’
‘I think you ought to leave.’
‘You haven’t written it down yet.’
The girl wrote the eight words on a memo pad, her hand shaking slightly. ‘There. I’ll give it to Ms Crew when she’s in the office.’
‘Right. And then you can tell her to damn well phone me.’
‘I think I’ll really have to ask you to leave now.’ ‘You know I’m a police officer?’
