Madeleine Francoise de Latour d'Auray Butler, nee
Frances stared into the uninspiring glow of the electric fire.
Madeleine Francoise had not originally been a loose end - if she had been then Colonel Butler would never have got this far in the promotion stakes. Madeleine Francoise had been tied up to everyone's sufficient satisfaction, and now something (or someone) had untied her - had raised her ghost, which had not walked for nine years...
(A devious old sod, so she had to think deviously too.) (An old man near retirement; but it couldn't be his job Colonel Butler was lined up for, that was out of the Colonel's league, she was sure of that.) (Whatever job it was. Sir Frederick wanted him to get it too, but obviously wasn't prepared to fight openly for the Colonel, to risk trouble for him. Was it Paul who had said the Old Sod was sitting tight for his pension and his life peerage? It was certainly Paul who had hinted that the Old Sod was losing his grip, no longer holding off the Minister and the politicians and the Civil Servants as he had once done.) (She must talk to Paul as soon as possible. Short of talking to David Audley ... short of disobeying orders ... Paul was her best bet. Paul wouldn't be frightened of tomorrow's ghosts.)
* * *
She was tired, but she didn't want to go to bed.
She got up and crossed to Robbie's side of the fireplace, where Sir Frederick had sat while she read the report, and lifted the three Tolkien volumes out of Robbie's bookshelf.
Then she went back to her own side and sat down again, and started reading at random, flipping from place to place, picking out the names from the past of her original reading.
Rings of Power...
It was dead quiet in the cottage, as always.
There was a letter from her Robbie between the pages of the first volume. She felt no curiosity about its contents, they wouldn't be interesting. She wasn't even very surprised that it was still there; she had dusted the book a dozen times, but she hadn't opened it.
Bits of the old days like this were always turning up, she had long since ceased trying to look for them, they didn't matter.
She screwed the letter up into a tight ball and dropped it into the wastepaper basket, and went on reading.
Well, it was still a fairy story - it hadn't changed, and neither had she. There was no spear in her heart for Robbie.
Wizards and trolls and elves with bright eyes and sharp swords, and rings of power...
She knew she wasn't really concentrating. Rather, she was wondering how it was she already knew that Colonel Butler hadn't murdered his wife on the morning of November 11, 1969.
CHAPTER SIX
As promised, the side-door of the publican's snug of the Bear and Ragged Staff public house was unlocked one hour before licensed opening time, and ex-Detective Chief Inspector William Ewart Hedges was waiting for her on the other side of it, sitting comfortably beside a newly-lit fire with a copy of the
Telephone Number 01-836-20066, Extension 223, might have the sort of fat, self-satisfied, establishment voice she always found most off-putting, but at least he knew how to deliver the right man to the right place at the right time at short notice, thought Frances.
Predictably, the right man wasn't quite as quick to recognise her, though his double-take as she entered was so fleeting that she wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been half expecting it, and his moment of surprise when she dropped the catch behind her was so well camouflaged that it was hardly noticeable at all except as a cautious nod of greeting.
'Mrs Fisher?' He rose to his feet with the characteristic stoop of a tall man accustomed to low beams in old pubs.
'Mr Hedges?' The question was altogether superfluous after he had doubly identified himself by knowing her latest identity, but good manners and a modest demeanour was what the occasion demanded. 'It's very good of you to see me, to give me your time like this.'
He studied her in silence for a moment, as though taking her to pieces and then reassembling her to see how the parts fitted together.
'That's all right, Mrs Fisher. I've got all the time in the world.'
And so he had, thought Frances, and that was the trouble: if he'd still been a serving policeman it would have been in his best interest to co-operate with her to the full, and she could lean on him if he didn't. But a retired man was beyond her reach, he could keep his mouth shut and there was nothing she could do about it.
She smiled.
No smile in return: Ex-Chief Inspector William Ewart Hedges was a man's man, not a ladies' man, that litmus paper test indicated.
'May I see your warrant card, Mrs Fisher, please?' said ex-Chief Inspector William Ewart Hedges.
And a cautious man.
'Of course.' Frances opened her bag. For an instant she couldn't remember which compartment held which identity. It would never do to give him Marilyn in her bikini.
Thank you.'
He took his time comparing the Fitzgibbon photograph with the Fisher illusion. And at the end of his time he
