Why do people always say that? I’ve told you it doesn’t bloody help. It can’t. It never will.
‘So how did the authorities know it was Grace?’
‘The killers left her passports. She had three. A valid Israeli one, an expired British one in her own name . . . and a forged British passport in another name. I think that’s why Baker insisted you be told.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’
‘The name in the bogus passport was Grace Bassett, and she listed you in it as husband, next of kin, and person to be informed . . . You know the drill. It was a very good forgery.’
I had a couple more sips of the jungle juice, and said, ‘I think I’ll go outside again.’
This time Fiona let me do it alone.
As I paced up and down in the dust I remembered that Warboys’s little courier had said the person who had offered to pay for my murder was a crippled old lady. He was about ten, wasn’t he? Did he look on me as old? What would he have thought of Grace?
When I went back for the third time I told Watson, ‘I’m not sure I can believe it. I thought she was dead a couple of times. She always manages to come back.’
‘Not this time, old boy. Anyway, I thought you might say that, so I pulled a few strings, and had a couple of snaps flown over. The camera never lies.’
‘From the Foreign Office?’
‘No, from the police chief’s office in Athens – much more reliable.’
‘I thought we were persona non grata with the Greeks at the moment, over this Enosis business.’
‘We are, we are . . . it’s just that some of us are still a bit more grata than the rest, believe me. Gregori owed me a favour. You don’t have to look at them if you don’t want to.’
I thought, and had a couple more sips before reaching for them. My glass was miraculously empty, and so was Watson’s bottle. He opened another, and threw the cap away.
The photographs had obviously been taken in daylight, and therefore the next morning. One was of her face; a remorseless close-up. Grace’s elfin features had taken on that marbled immobility of death. Her mouth was a little open – she always did that when she was surprised – and her eyes heavy lidded, but not quite shut. She often looked like that after we had made love. The other photograph was of her body in situ, taken from above. Her arms and legs made her look as if she was running: I had seen a body like that somewhere before, and couldn’t remember where. Although she had been shot in the back, she had twisted over to see the sky as she went. That was Grace all over. I hoped that there had been a million million stars for her. A walking stick lay close to her right hand.
‘Was the walking stick hers?’ I asked Watson.
‘Yes. Her right hip had been smashed up by a pistol bullet years ago. They found it still there when they autopsied her – small-calibre job. Too much information – sorry . . .’
‘No. Go on.’
‘Apparently it must have completely crippled her. The pathologist said she would have walked like an old woman.’ All the words came back together.
I stood up, and walked to the window. I left my back to him.
‘Do they know how it happened?’
‘She was found the next morning down near one of the exits by the stage. The police theorize she was trying to get away. She might have made it if she hadn’t been slowed down by her old injuries.’
‘You said they when talking about who killed her . . .’
‘At least two – two different makes of bullet. What with the one in her hip, it must have been like the death of Caesar.’
I slopped my drink around in its glass, and tried to think. I couldn’t. I could just believe that Grace would want me dead; she didn’t leave jobs unfinished. But that meant that I . . .
‘Has anyone told Carlo yet?’
‘No. We rather thought you’d want to do that yourself when you got back. He didn’t ever meet her, did he?’
‘Apart from the moment of birth, no – I don’t think so.’
‘No point in him being at the funeral then. What about you? I could always speed things up, and fly you home in time. It’s going to be a quiet affair, I understand – at the family pile in Cambridgeshire.’ Bedfordshire, I thought, but didn’t correct him.
I remembered Grace there the morning a Lanc had crashed nearby; she’d found the body of a crew member. That was virtually the only time I’d seen her cry. Did I want to go to her funeral, and finish it? It was another thing I had to think about before replying, and then I used almost the same words.
‘No. I don’t think so. I’ll see her later.’
Watson walked over to the door which hid Fiona’s territory.
I heard him say, ‘Sandwiches, please, dear. Cheese, bags of mustard and a bit of cress. And once you’ve brought them, take the rest of the day off. Switch off the phones, and lock the door on us. Charlie and I are going to get drunk.’
I don’t understand how these things work. Grace was murdered at a place called Epidaurus; a huge old Greek theatre. I’d seen one in Egypt so I knew what they looked like. I hadn’t even heard of it until a week or so before, when Warboys had spoken of it, of course – so I already had a helpful picture in my head when Watson described the scene to me. We call these things coincidences, shrug and turn away. But what they are like are echoes.