A Prospect of Vengeance

shock. But that's why I remember her so well, even though it is something one would like to forget.'

She was implying that, if there had been a file, it would have been purged. So there probably had been a file. And she had purged it.

She blinked at him again. 'As I recall, Mr Robinson, she left our employ in November, just before Armistice Day. And I do dummy2

remember that because I was working with her in the same office: I was acting as Dr Garfield's secretary at the time, and she was temping for Dr Cavendish's secretary, who was on leave of absence.'

He observed her lips tighten at the memory. And it was 'tittle-tattle' that he wanted. 'Yes.'

'Yes.' Slight sniff. 'I remember that because when . . . when the person selling the British Legion poppies came round she insisted on his pinning her poppy on her blouse. Which was . . . quite improper. But quite typical, also.'

Tittle-tattle. 'Typical, Mrs Simmonds?' He cocked his head innocently, deliberately forgetting Mrs Simmonds' earlier reference to Marilyn's blouses.

Half-sniff, half-sigh. 'One of Miss Francis's affectations was to wear as little as possible. I could never understand why she didn't get pneumonia.'

Ian opened his mouth. 'Ah . . .'

'She left us shortly after that. She received an urgent telephone message . . . apparently her mother had been taken ill. So she left us immediately. And I remember that too, because it was mid-week, and I let her have ?5 from the petty cash as an advance on the money due to her, for her fare home. Which I never saw again, of course — though I suppose I can hardly blame her for that, in the circumstances . . . Although what she was doing up in Yorkshire a few days later I'll never know — I thought her dummy2

home was in London.'

'But you don't know where?' Instinct stirred: she didn't know, but something had occurred to her, nevertheless. 'Did she commute back home every day?' That would have been easy enough from Rickmansworth. But London was a big place.

'No.' She shook her head. 'I believe she had digs somewhere down here.' Slight frown. 'She never minded working late, I will say that for her. But that may have been because she was trying to ingratiate herself with Dr Cavendish, in case Miss Ballard didn't come back. And she'd stay to cover for anyone else — Dr Page, or Dr Garfield, or — or anyone else.'

Like Dr Harrison, maybe?

'She said she needed the money, so the extra hours were useful.' Mrs Simmonds pressed on. 'But she was a nosey young woman. Always chatting the men up, trying to insinuate herself where she had no right to be — ' She snapped her mouth shut on herself suddenly, as if she'd heard herself. 'But there, now: I'm being unkind, aren't I — '

She cut herself off again.

'No.' Maybe she'd misread his expression. But, at all costs he mustn't lose her again. 'No. You're just being honest, Mrs Simmonds. And I respect you for that. Because . . . not many people are honest.'

She stared at him. 'Honest?' The word seemed to hurt her.

'Yes.' If he could hold her now, when her defences were dummy2

down, she'd give him everything she'd got. 'Thanks to you, I understand much better now what others have said. And what they haven't said.'

'Do you?' The pain showed again. 'I wonder.'

'Wonder . . . what?'

'Perhaps I should have tried harder to understand her. After what you've told me.' She looked away from him for a moment. 'It's a long time ago . . .'

'Yes. It is.' He waited.

'And yet ... of all the temps we've had ... I remember her so well — so well!' She looked away again. 'Better than any of them, you know.'

Was that surprising? Apart from Marilyn's see-through blouses, not many of Mrs Simmonds' temps could have been shot by the IRA. But, more likely, the doting mother/kind auntie inside her was now torturing her with visions of Marilyn Francis working long extra hours not to chat up the men, but to support the fair-haired, blue-eyed baby he'd invented. And that, in turn, didn't exactly make him feel a great human being.

She looked at him. 'Deep down I think she was sad.'

'Sad?' The word took him by surprise.

'Yes. And a little desperate, perhaps . . . But I can understand that now, of course.' She nodded wisely.

'Many of these young women make the most terrible messes of their lives. Early marriages, or unplanned babies — just dummy2

like Marilyn . . . We try to help them, naturally. And some of them take it all in their stride — quite amazingly resilient, they are . . . It's as though they never expected anything different.'

'Yes?' He controlled his impatience. 'Are you saying . . .

Marilyn wasn't resilient?'

She thought about that for a moment. 'Perhaps I am — yes.

Some of the most intelligent ones have the biggest problems