'Yes, I'm Mrs Ashbourne,' she said in soft yet clearly enunciated tones.
'Sorry to disturb you at home. I'm from the Metropolitan Police. May I come in?' He flashed his ID.
The woman's pale ivory skin appeared to blanche further.
'Oh, no,' she said, panicked. Whatever's happened?'
'Nothing to be alarmed about, madam,' Foster explained softly. 'I just need a quick chat, if you have the time?'
'Yes, yes, of course,' she replied, and ushered him in.
The house was silent, apart from the sonorous tick and tock of a large grandfather clock. They went through a reception area into a drawing room. The windows at the back looked out on to a vast and well-manicured garden.
She gestured him towards a sofa while she went and made tea. After five minutes of oppressive silence, just the sound of his breathing and the solemn ticking of the clock, she returned with a tray replete with teapot, jug of milk, sugar and cups with saucers.
'Is your husband around, Mrs Ashbourne?' Foster said, accepting his tea.
She shook her head. 'No, he's retired but he spends a few days a week as a non-executive director for some companies up in town. There's a meeting today. He's due back around four.' She glanced at a wall-mounted clock. It was just gone two.
She heaped two sugars into her tea and gave it a vigorous stir. Then she sat down, perched on the edge of the chair. She seemed fit and active. Foster guessed the immaculate garden was her doing. He also wondered at her resolve. He had been in the house for some time and not once had she asked the reason for his visit.
Are you here about Edward?' She took a sip of tea.
'Your husband?'
Yess, my husband, Edward.'
'No.' Foster took a sip of tea. It was scalding hot. The woman must have asbestos lips. He put it back down on the table. 'It's quite a delicate situation, to be honest.'
'Oh. Really?'
'I'm sorry, there's no way for me to do this without being blunt. I apologize in advance.' He paused. 'Did you adopt a child in 1964?'
She said nothing. Just stared at him without blinking.
Then she took a sip of tea before she glanced down at the floor. 'So it's about Dominic,' she said quietly.
Yes.'
She sighed. Her face no longer appeared proud. She looked sad, almost broken, as she nodded her head. 'I suppose deep down I've been waiting for this day for a long time. What has he done?'
We just want to speak to him in relation to a case we're working on,' he said.
'Is he in trouble?'
We don't know. But we need to speak to him. Are you in contact with him?'
She shook her head. Her eyes were beginning to well.
'Not for a while. Quite a while, actually.'
Why?'
She turned her head and stared sadly out of the window.
The sun had just broken the clouds. It appeared to galvanize her. 'I was desperate for a child, any child. My father was desperate for a boy, an heir for the family business.
It seemed the easiest option. It didn't turn out that way.' She folded her hands in her lap.
Why not?' Foster asked.
'He was always a difficult little boy. He didn't sleep much and he seemed to have a real anger within him. I loved him, though. My husband wanted little to do with him -- he was never that sold on the idea in the first place, so when this cross little child turned up and kept us awake all hours he became even less enamoured with it all. It nearly forced us to part. Fortunately, I became pregnant and we had our own son, then another, and then a girl.
And Dominic? Well, Dominic just got squeezed out of our affections, I'm ashamed to say.'
'In what way?'
We sent him to boarding school very young. Too young, in hindsight. He didn't tell us but it turned out he had a wretched time there. In the holidays he was sullen and uncommunicative. I did try but my husband could barely stand to have him around and treated him quite harshly.
Dominic seemed to be so full of resentment. I don't blame him for some of that, and I accept my fair share of the blame in making him that way, but he became impossible to deal with. The only person he seemed to get on with was our daughter. She liked him. The two boys and he fought constantly. Eventually he left school and he didn't come home any more. There was the odd letter. I sent him money once. We had one or two calls from the police. Nothing serious.'
'Do you have an address or any idea where we could find him?'
'No. The last I heard, eight or nine years ago, he was up in London. He wasn't married. He changed his surname a few times, so I heard.' She turned to the garden once more. 'I do hope he hasn't hurt anyone.'
To ease your guilt? Foster thought. He felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor sod. Given away by his parents, adopted by a new family and then cast aside and rejected when they had a son of their own. Unloved and unwanted.
Runt of the litter. He thought of the daughter he'd never met. The child he never wanted in the first place. He was in no position to judge.
'Do you know anyone who might know of his whereabouts, Mrs Ashbourne?' he asked.
The old woman gave it some thought. Her eyes were red and ringed now with great sadness. 'I could ring Clarissa, my daughter. I wouldn't be surprised if they were in touch. She did tell me a few years ago that he was living in Barking. Would you like me to call her?'
'If you wouldn't mind, thanks,' Foster replied.
She left the room.
It's like a textbook on how to screw up a child, he thought.
A few minutes later, Mrs Ashbourne came back into the room. 'Clarissa hasn't heard anything since the last time she told me he was in Barking.'
Where Leonie and Gary lived, he thought. 'She doesn't have any numbers, or an address?'
'No,' she replied quickly, almost snappily. She composed herself. 'Sorry,' she said. 'This sort of news hits one very hard.'
Does it? he thought. After hearing her story, his reserves of sympathy were low. 'I better be going.' He rose. 'Thanks for your time.'
He knew where he needed to go next.
She was aware only of the putrid smell of the sheets and the ticking clock in the corner. Counting the last seconds of her life. She felt alone and so far from her home. Her dreams were all about the open fields and the empty skies, the crisp winter mornings and the long, hot summers that seemed never to end. But mainly they were filled with the look of her mother, the creases at the corners of her eyes and the soft smile. Except in the dreams those laughing eyes often frowned.
And those screams, those awful screams.
This city had been a place to live but it had never been home. For her two daughters and their families it was. They would never know the joy of living from the land like she had.
The doctor had been. She had fallen asleep but it was clear she was dying. The vicar was on his way to administer the last rites. At least there will be the comfort of the Lord, and the chance to be reunited with Horton. Maybe up there -- and she had prayed every night since his death that their sins be forgiven and they be allowed to join Him in his eternal kingdom -- they might find other ways to be redeemed.
That could only happen in the arms of the Lord. Down here, there was damnation. She must find a way to warn the little girl.
Hours slipped by. It could have been days. She half-remembered the vicar sitting by her bed, his hand on hers. He was a good man.
