‘Did you speak to Matilda about it afterwards?’
‘I let it pass. I knew her well enough to leave well alone.’
‘Barry Montgomery, friend?’
‘Wendy’s told you, hasn’t she?’ Amelia said without emotion.
‘We know that you were lovers, shared the same bed on occasions.’
‘It wasn’t a relationship, no declarations of love.’
‘Now, this is where we have a problem,’ Larry said. ‘Everyone that he’s been involved with has described him as beautiful, and some have professed love for the man.’
‘Your sergeant has told me of some of it. Not that I ever knew. He wasn’t in Matilda’s house all the time, but when he was, he was the brother; and if I were free, then we’d get together. We didn’t talk about much, certainly not about his childhood, and I had no intention of introducing him to my parents.’
‘Why not your parents?’
‘They’d make a fuss, tell me what a lovely man he was, and how I’d not find better. My mother’s keen on grandchildren, someone to maintain the family line.’
‘Did you learn anything about his sister and his childhood?’
‘Not really. I knew there was a problem, he told me that much, but he didn’t elaborate, and I certainly didn’t push the point. I suppose I should have some shame telling you this, but I don’t. When Barry was here with me, conversation was the last thing on our minds.’
‘A good lover?’ Isaac asked, slightly envious of the dead man.
‘The best,’ Amelia said, a grin on her face – aimed at Isaac, not Larry.
‘Did Sergeant Gladstone tell you about his time as an escort, his involvement with a married woman?’
‘I’m not sure that she told me everything.’
‘What she told you, and we’ll go over this in a minute, were you shocked?’
‘My view, as well of that of my parents, is not to pass judgement on people. If they mind their own business, don’t interfere in ours, and don’t offend or commit crimes against others, then I don’t have an opinion.’
‘A broad statement,’ Larry said.
‘I don’t think so,’ Amelia said. ‘You asked a question, I gave you an answer. Tell me this, did Barry commit any crime?’
‘There are some who believe that prostitution, the selling of sexual favours, should be a crime, but no.’
‘Then why should I be concerned? If he made some women happy and he was paid in return, then that was his business, not mine.’
‘And if he was doing this while sleeping with you?’
‘If I had known, then he would have been sleeping in his own bed. As I said, our relationship was casual, and if I needed someone…’
‘You have a few you could phone?’ Isaac said.
‘I wouldn’t have, though. I’m not that easy, but Barry not telling me about the others would have been an issue. It’s the deception that I would disapprove of, not the act.’
‘We know that he was also contracting himself out through an escort agency. Did you know about this?’
‘Wendy told me.’
‘It wasn’t only women,’ Larry said.
‘While I was sleeping with him?’
‘We have no proof of his homosexual activities after he met you.’
‘If he was still alive and I knew of this, then I would have been upset with him. But he’s dead, and he’s not coming back. I have no intention of slandering the dead.’
‘The homosexual act offends you?’
‘Not in itself. My only concern is my health. I trusted him, and he didn’t use a condom. I could have caught something from him.’
‘Have you checked yourself out?’ Isaac asked.
‘The first thing I did after Wendy told me some of the details. I’m fine, nothing to worry about.’
Isaac looked around the room. He could see that she was not a cold woman emotionally: photos of her family, an enlarged picture of a horse on the wall, mementoes from her trips overseas.
‘Let us come back to your time with Barry,’ Larry said.
‘I believe we’ve exhausted the subject. He was a good man, an even better lover,’ she said. ‘No emotional entanglements, no discussing the state of the economy, climate warming or whatever. We met, here or once in Matilda’s house, and that was it.’
‘Barry had a profound effect on everyone he met,’ Isaac said, unable to contain the need to confront the woman. ‘Why and how have you remained unemotional?’
‘Upbringing, emotional restraint,’ Amelia replied. The two police officers could see that she was becoming tired of the interview.
‘You were a few years younger than Barry. From what we’ve been told, he was a good catch.’
‘Told by whom?’
‘Those he was involved with.’
‘Gay men and older women, is that it? They’re hardly a cross-section of society. I could never allow myself to fall for a man like Barry.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not a snob, far from it, but whoever marries me will have a say in the running of the family’s business, the ancestral home, access to a lot of money. My emotions are in check until I find the right man.’
‘Aristocratic, public school, a friend of royalty?’
‘Not at all. My parents would disapprove if I used those as the criteria. I need someone I can understand, an open book.’
‘The right school, knows how to use his cutlery?’ Isaac was baiting the woman, probing to see if she would make a mistake.
‘I wouldn’t care if he was government educated, the son of a labourer, even if he grew up on a council estate. Barry, I judged, did not have what I want. And sure, I tried to get through to Matilda, as well as Barry, but both of them were mentally compromised by what I could only judge as a difficult childhood.’
‘Have you found anyone suitable yet?’
‘Not yet. I’m still young enough, and I’m not a demanding woman looking for an impossible ideal.’
‘If
