“Ah,” said Strike. “Those are Gwilherm’s ashes, are they?”
“I told Tudor to get the one with the bird, because I like birds.”
One of the budgerigars fluttered suddenly across the cage in a blur of bright green and yellow.
“Who painted that?” asked Strike, pointing at the ankh.
“Gwilherm,” said Deborah, continuing to dextrously ply her crochet hook.
Samhain re-entered the room, holding a tin tray.
“Not on my jigsaw,” his mother warned him, but there was no other free surface.
“Should I—?” offered Strike, gesturing toward the puzzle, but there was no space anywhere on the floor to accommodate it.
“You close it,” Deborah told him, with a hint of reproach, and Strike saw that the jigsaw mat had wings, which could be fastened to protect the puzzle. He did so, and Samhain laid the tray on top. Deborah stuck her crochet hook carefully in the ball of wool and accepted a mug of instant hot chocolate and a Penguin biscuit from her son. Samhain kept the Batman mug for himself. Strike sipped his drink and said, “Very nice,” not entirely dishonestly.
“I make good hot chocolate, don’t I, Deborah?” said Samhain, unwrapping a biscuit.
“Yes,” said Deborah, blowing on the surface of the hot liquid.
“I know this was a long time ago,” Strike began again, “but there was another doctor, who worked with Dr. Brenner—”
“Old Joe Brenner was a dirty old man,” said Samhain Athorn, with a cackle.
Strike looked at him in surprise. Samhain directed his smirk at the closed jigsaw.
“Why was he a dirty old man?” asked the detective.
“My Uncle Tudor told me,” said Samhain. “Dirty old man. Hahahaha. Is this mine?” he asked, picking up the envelope addressed to Clare Spencer.
“No,” said his mother. “That’s Clare’s.”
“Why is it?”
“I think,” said Strike, “it’s from your downstairs neighbor.”
“He’s a bastard,” said Samhain, putting the letter back down. “He made us throw everything away, didn’t he, Deborah?”
“I like it better now,” said Deborah mildly. “It’s good now.”
Strike allowed a moment or two to pass, in case Samhain had more to add, then asked,
“Why did Uncle Tudor say Joseph Brenner was a dirty old man?”
“Tudor knew everything about everyone,” said Deborah placidly.
“Who was Tudor?” Strike asked her.
“Gwilherm’s brother,” said Deborah. “He always knew about people round here.”
“Does he still visit you?” asked Strike, suspecting the answer.
“Passed-away-to-the-other side,” said Deborah, as though it was one long word. “He used to buy our shopping. He took Sammy to play football and to the swimming.”
“I do all the shopping now,” piped up Samhain. “Sometimes I don’t want to do the shopping but if I don’t, I get hungry, and Deborah says, ‘It’s your fault there’s nothing to eat.’ So then I go shopping.”
“Good move,” said Strike.
The three of them drank their hot chocolate.
“Dirty old man, Joe Brenner,” repeated Samhain, more loudly. “Uncle Tudor used to tell me some stories. Old Betty and the one who wouldn’t pay, hahahaha. Dirty old Joe Brenner.”
“I didn’t like him,” said Deborah quietly. “He wanted me to take my pants off.”
“Really?” said Strike.
While this had surely been a question of a medical examination, he felt uncomfortable.
“Yes, to look at me,” said Deborah. “I didn’t want it. Gwilherm wanted it, but I don’t like men I don’t know looking at me.”
“No, well, I can understand that,” said Strike. “You were ill, were you?”
“Gwilherm said I had to,” was her only response.
If he’d still been in the Special Investigation Branch, there would have been a female officer with him for this interview. Strike wondered what her IQ was.
“Did you ever meet Dr. Bamborough?” he asked. “She was,” he hesitated, “a lady doctor.”
“I’ve never seen a lady doctor,” said Deborah, with what sounded like regret.
“D’you know whether Gwilherm ever met Dr. Bamborough?”
“She died,” said Deborah.
“Yes,” said Strike, surprised. “People think she died, but no one knows for s—”
One of the budgerigars made the little bell hanging from the top of its cage tinkle. Both Deborah and Samhain looked around, smiling.
“Which one was it?” Deborah asked Samhain.
“Bluey,” he said. “Bluey’s cleverer’n Billy Bob.”
Strike waited for them to lose interest in the budgerigars, which took a couple of minutes. When both Athorns’ attention had returned to their hot chocolates, he said,
“Dr. Bamborough disappeared and I’m trying to find out what happened to her. I’ve been told that Gwilherm talked about Dr. Bamborough, after she went missing.”
Deborah didn’t respond. It was hard to know whether she was listening, or deliberately ignoring him.
“I heard,” said Strike—there was no point not saying it; this was the whole reason he was here, after all—“that Gwilherm told people he killed her.”
Deborah glanced at Strike’s left ear, then back at her hot chocolate.
“You’re like Tudor,” she said. “You know what’s what. He probably did,” she added placidly.
“You mean,” said Strike carefully, “he told people about it?”
She didn’t answer.
“… or you think he killed the doctor?”
“Was My-Dad-Gwilherm doing magic on her?” Samhain inquired of his mother. “My-Dad-Gwilherm didn’t kill that lady. My uncle Tudor told me what really happened.”
“What did your uncle tell you?” asked Strike, turning from mother to son, but Samhain had just crammed his mouth full of chocolate biscuit, so Deborah continued the story.
“He woke me up one time when I was asleep,” said Deborah, “and it was dark. He said, ‘I killed a lady by mistake.’ I said, ‘You’ve had a bad dream.’ He said, ‘No, no, I’ve killed her, but I didn’t mean it.’”
“Woke you up to tell you, did he?”
“Woke me up, all upset.”
“But you think it was just a bad dream?”
“Yes,” said Deborah, but then, after a moment or two, she said, “but maybe he did kill her, because he could do magic.”
“I see,” said Strike untruthfully, turning back to Samhain.
“What did your Uncle Tudor say happened to the lady doctor?”
“I can’t tell you that,” said Samhain, suddenly grinning. “Uncle Tudor said not to tell. Never.” But he grinned with a Puckish delight at having a secret. “My-Dad-Gwilherm did that,” he went on, pointing at
