It was Sonovia who’d said where she might be found.
“Her auntie’s grave is in there.” It couldn’t be, but what was the point of showing the poor thing up as a liar now?
Daniel and his wife and child had come over by then, to be with Sonovia and comfort her. So Laf had gone out with the DI and a detective sergeant and two women officers to search for Minty. The afternoon had grown very warm, sultry and amber-colored, the air heavy and dusted with gold, as it sometimes is in September. They went into the cemetery by the western gate half an hour before it was due to close. The man selling flowers said he’d seen Minty hours ago, she’d come running, out of breath and shivering, but she’d bought more from him than ever before, and she was a regular customer. Chrysanthemums she’d had and Michaelmas daisies, pink and purple asters, and the most expensive things he had, white lilies and pink ones. He’d never have believed she could afford them…
It took only about ten minutes to find her. When they did she was fast asleep. She was lying curled up like a child amid bunches and bunches of fast-withering flowers, on the grave of someone called Maisie Julia Chepstow who’d died a hundred years before. No one knew why she’d picked that one. The only man who knew and could have told them was dead, his ashes in an alabaster urn, forgotten at the back of a dark cupboard.
About the author
Ruth Rendell is the author of
