The second cat now entered the room, staring at the unusually large group it found inside. She picked her way past the armchairs, the ottoman and the sofa, jumped up onto the windowsill and sat with her back to them, watching the raindrops sliding down the window.
“Now, listen,” said Kim, from the upright chair she’d brought out of a corner of the room, “we really do want to pay you for the extra month you put in. I know you said no—”
“It was our choice to keep working on the case,” said Strike. “We’re glad to have helped and we definitely don’t want more money.”
He and Robin had agreed that, as the Margot Bamborough case looked likely to pay for itself three times over in terms of publicity and extra work, and as Strike felt he really should have solved it sooner, taking more cash from Anna and Kim felt unnecessarily greedy.
“Then we’d like to make a donation to charity,” said Kim. “Is there one you’d like us to support?”
“Well,” said Strike, clearing his throat, “if you’re serious, Macmillan nurses…”
He saw a slight look of surprise on the family’s faces.
“My aunt died this year,” he explained, “and the Macmillan nurse gave her a lot of support.”
“Oh, I see,” said Kim, with a slight laugh, and there was a little pause, in which the specter of Janice Beattie seemed to rise up in the middle of them, like the wisp of steam issuing from the teapot spout.
“A nurse,” said Anna quietly. “Who’d suspect a nurse?”
“Margot,” said Roy and Oonagh together.
They caught each other’s eye, and smiled: a rueful smile, doubtless surprised at finding themselves in agreement at long last, and Robin saw Cynthia look away.
“She didn’t like that nurse. She told me so,” said Oonagh, “but I got the woman confused with that blonde at the Christmas party who made a scene.”
“No, she never took to the nurse,” said Roy. “She told me, too, when she joined the practice. I didn’t take much notice…”
He seemed determined to be honest, now, however much it hurt.
“… I thought it was a case of two women being too similar: both working class, both strong characters. When I met the woman at the barbecue, I actually thought she seemed quite… well… decent. Of course, Margot never told me her suspicions…”
There was another silence, and everyone in the room, Strike was sure, was remembering that Roy hadn’t spoken to his wife at all in those few weeks before her murder, which was precisely the time period during which Margot’s suspicions of Janice must have crystallized.
“Janice Beattie’s probably the best liar I’ve ever met,” Strike said, into the tense atmosphere, “and a hell of an actress.”
“I’ve had the most extraordinary letter,” said Anna, “from her son, Kevin. Did you know he’s coming over from Dubai to testify against her?”
“We did,” said Strike, who George Layborn was briefing regularly on the progress of the police investigation.
“He wrote that he thinks Mum examining him saved his life,” said Anna.
Robin noticed how Anna was now calling Margot “Mum,” when previously she’d only said “my mother.”
“It’s a remarkable letter,” said Kim, nodding. “Full of apologies, as though it’s somehow his fault.”
“Poor man,” said Oonagh quietly.
“He says he blames himself for not going to the police about her, but what child would believe his mother’s a serial killer? I really can’t,” said Anna again, over the purring of Cagney the cat in Strike’s lap, “explain adequately to you both what you’ve done for me… for all of us. The not knowing’s been so terrible, and now I know for sure that Mum didn’t leave willingly and that she went… well, quite peacefully…”
“As deaths go,” said Strike, “it was almost painless.”
“And I know for sure she loved me,” said Anna.
“We always—” began Cynthia, but her stepdaughter said quickly,
“I know you always told me she did, Cyn, but without knowing what really happened, there was always going to be a doubt, wasn’t there? But when I compare my situation with Kevin Beattie’s, I actually feel lucky… D’you know,” Anna asked Strike and Robin, “what they found when they—you know—got Mum out of the concrete?”
“No,” said Strike.
Cynthia’s thin hands were playing with her wedding ring, twisting it around her finger.
“The locket Dad gave her,” said Anna. “It’s tarnished, but when they opened it up, it had a picture of me in it, which was as good as new,” said Anna, and her eyes suddenly shone with tears again. Oonagh reached out and patted Anna on the knee. “They say I’ll be able to have it back, once they’ve completed all the forensics.”
“How lovely,” said Robin quietly.
“And did you hear what was in her handbag?” asked Kim.
“No,” said Strike.
“Notes from her consultation on Theo,” said Kim. “They’re completely legible—protected by the leather, you know. Her full name was Theodosia Loveridge and she was from a traveler family. Margot suspected an ectopic pregnancy and wanted to ring an ambulance, but Theo said her boyfriend would take her. Margot’s notes suggest Theo was scared of her family knowing she was pregnant. They don’t seem
