what was important had shown him what it was.
'Felix explained to you that he had made an arrangement for Ms McShane to hand over the child to you for upbringing,' he said. It was quite obvious as he said it. Funny how all the best deductions felt like that, not triumphs of logic but so clear you'd have to be brain dead to miss them.
He had no problem accepting that even a bright, educated woman like Lucy could have been taken in. Man might need a degree in psychology to understand why these things happened but to recognize that they did happen all he needed was a bit of observation and a lot of human sympathy. He recalled his cousin Mercy who got sent down for fourteen days by some dickhead magistrate for shoplifting dolls after she lost her baby. They got her out on appeal, but the magistrate, who was quoted as saying that it was far too easy for criminals to hide behind a screen of psychiatric disability, was still up there, regretting they no longer chopped off hands for petty theft.
He found that this diversion from the mystery of the tape messages had allowed another deduction to pop up like a piece of toast. Maybe he should patent this not thinking. Endo Venera, eat your heart out! Peter Potter was in his chambers on the evening of the twenty-eighth because that was when he had his appointment to meet Felix Naysmith.
Except that was really crazy, a real not-thinking conclusion. He'd been there himself and heard Potter talking to Naysmith on the phone. And the police had checked that the call came from the Naysmiths' cottage in Lincolnshire.
No, the fault had to lie in his interpretation of the phone message ... the first phone message, that was, not the call he'd overheard ... though if one why not the other ... but how ... ?
Back to the present!
Lucy was speaking.
'... and she'd be happy with me, I know she would. I've seen her often in the park, you know. She always knows when I'm watching and gives me a smile as if she's saying, yes, I'd love to come and live with you. She knows how much I'd love her. I'd always take her for walks myself, I wouldn't let some other woman have her while I was running around somewhere else, I'd be a real mother ... what are they doing up there, Mr. Sixsmith? If you've really come here to help, you'll go up there this minute and tell them I'm tired of waiting ... he said in the New Year and that's where we are, isn't it?'
Oh yes. In the New Year. Felix Naysmith had been pretty free with his promises of what he'd do in the New Year.
But which promise would he keep? And how would he keep it?
Time to go upstairs and ask him, thought Joe.
Uneasily he rose to his feet, clinging to the arm of the chair for support.
Lucy was standing looking at the wall behind the desk.
'He always keeps his promises ...' she murmured. 'I was pregnant, you know. It doesn't show ... perhaps if I'd let it show...'
What the shoot was she looking at? A photo on the wall ... a wedding photo ... a bride with long blonde hair which the wind was whipping across her laughing face ... but that was Potter's wedding, that was Mrs. Potter ... with Naysmith as best man ... Naysmith who'd surprised his friends by getting married, whereas Potter ... I'd have said he was more likely which just goes to show... Butcher's voice ... This tremendous surge of crazy thoughts made Joe's head so heavy he almost sat down again. But, doubting if he'd ever manage to rise again, he resisted. Till a voice from the doorway said, 'So you're here too. That's nice and handy.' At which he turned, saw that he was being addressed by a dead man, and stopped resisting.
Twenty-Six.
Peter Potter came slowly into the room.
It wasn't of course Peter Potter, but Felix Naysmith with the face-concealing dressings removed.
'Darling, why are you doing that to Mr. Sixsmith?' asked Lucy as Naysmith/Potter wrapped a length of fishing line round Joe's chest and bound him to the chair. 'I thought he'd come to help.'
'No, dear, far from it. And Mr. Sixsmith is like one of those black beetles in the conservatory. You keep stamping on them but he keeps scuttling away!'
'It's you been trying to kill me,' said Joe.
'Certainly. You see, while I knew you were stupid enough to mistake me for Potter, and stupid enough for me to use you to give me an alibi when Lucy got so impatient she rang from the cottage an act of folly also, but one which in the event turned out very well I didn't believe that such monumental stupidity could keep me safe forever. Of course, when you rang me ... why did you ring me, by the way?'
'Believe it or not, it was an accident.'
'Oh, I believe it,' laughed Naysmith. 'But it really frightened me for a second. Then I realized here was a marvelous chance to lay another red herring and also give me an excuse to cover my face up till I'd succeeded in disposing of you. Injuring myself so it didn't look self-inflicted was a bit of a bore, but we all have to suffer in a good cause. How's that? Too tight, I hope?'
'Darling, where's Feelie? Why haven't you brought her?' asked Lucy.
'She's upstairs in the nursery saying goodbye to her ... to
Dorrie. I felt she deserved that at least. She may be giving up the child but she's not entirely without feeling.'
Joe shuddered. Looking at Naysmith's track record, it was entirely possible poor Dorrie McShane was indeed entirely without feeling. But he hoped not. This was a man who did not hesitate to kill in order to remove obstacles, but in this case, which obstacle did he want to remove?
He said urgently, 'Mrs. Naysmith, Dorrie McShane doesn't want to give up her baby. Your husband's been lying to you. She loves the child dearly.'
'No,' she said. 'All she's interested in is the money. That's all she's ever been interested in. That's why Felix
