“I’m afraid it’s not the most salubrious of dwellings,” he continued. “I did offer to modernize it, but Tess said it had character.”
I felt ashamed of myself for being irritated by the lack of mod cons in the kitchen, the state of the bathroom, the draughty windows.
My eyes were further accustomed to the darkness and I could see that he had been planting up your pots outside your door, his bare hands stained with earth.
“She used to come and see me every Thursday,” continued Amias. “Sometimes just for a drink, sometimes for supper. She must have had so many other things she’d rather be doing.”
“She liked you.”
I’d realized that was true. You’ve always had friends, proper friends, in different generations. I’d imagined you’d do it in reverse as you got older. One day you’d be an octogenarian chatting to people decades your junior. Amias was totally at ease with my silence and with consideration seemed to sense when my train of thought had finished before speaking.
“The police didn’t take a great deal of notice of me when I reported her missing. Until I told them about the nuisance phone calls. They made a big song and dance about that.”
He turned his face back to his planting and I tried to have the courtesy for him too to finish his train of thought in peace before I butted in.
“Did Tess tell you anything about the phone calls?”
“She just said she’d been getting vicious calls. She only told me because she said she’d unplugged her phone and was worried I might need to phone her. She used to have a mobile, but I think she lost it.”
“ ‘Vicious’?” That was the word she used?”
“Yes. At least I think so. The ghastly thing about old age is you can’t rely on yourself to be accurate anymore. She cried though. She tried not to, but she did.” He broke off, for just a moment, struggling to keep his composure. “I told her she ought to go to the police.”
“Tess’s psychiatrist told the police the phone calls were in her head.”
“Did he tell Tess that too?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Tessie.” I hadn’t heard anyone call you that since Dad left. “Awful not to be believed.”
“Yes.”
He turned to me. “I heard the phone ring. I told the police but I couldn’t swear that it was one of the nuisance calls. But it was immediately afterward that Tess asked me to look after the key. It was just two days before she died.”
I could see the anguish in his face, illuminated by the orange glow of the street light.
“I should have insisted she went to the police.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Thank you, you’re very kind. Like your sister.”
I wondered whether to tell the police about the key, but it would make no difference. It was just another instance of your supposed paranoia.
“A psychiatrist thinks that she was mad. Do you think that she was, after the baby, I mean?” I asked.
“No. She was very upset, and very frightened, I think. But she wasn’t mad.”
“The police think she was mad too.”
“And did anyone in the police ever meet her?”
He carried on planting bulbs, and his old hands, the skin paper-thin and misshapen by arthritis, must have been aching in the cold. I thought that this must be the way he was coping with grief: planting dead-looking bulbs that would miraculously flower in springtime. I remembered how after Leo died, you and Mum seemed to spend so much time gardening. I’d only now seen the connection.
“These are King Alfreds,” said Amias. “Her favorite variety of daffodils because they’re such a strong yellow. You’re meant to plant them in autumn but they come up in about six weeks, so they should have time to flower this spring.” But even I knew that you shouldn’t plant things in frozen earth. For some reason, thinking that Amias’s bulbs would never flower made me furious.
Just in case you’re wondering, yes, I even suspected Amias at the start of all this. I suspected everyone. But as he planted bulbs for you, any residual suspicion withered into absurdity. I’m sorry it was ever there.
He smiled at me. “She told me that scientists have put a daffodil gene into a rice plant and made rice with vitamin A. Imagine that.”
You’d told me that too.
