‘Yes, of course.’

‘Then I don’t quite see your problem.’ The Chief hadn’t met Celia Bannerman in Lucy’s room and seen the fear in her eyes, Penrose thought; the longer Lucy survived the accident, the more desperate Bannerman would become. ‘Look, I understand what you’re saying to me and normally I admire your flair—you know I do.’ Penrose accepted the condescension through gritted teeth, but he knew that the battle was over for now. ‘This time, though, I honestly think you’ve got it wrong. There’s the gala tomorrow night to consider, and the minister’s going to be there. I really can’t allow you to make waves unless you’ve got the facts to back it up. Go back and talk to Baker or Edwards, or whatever her name is.’

Penrose knew that he could talk to Edwards until he was blue in the face, but the answer would still be the same: she hadn’t killed her daughter or her husband. Understanding now exactly how Miriam Sharpe felt about society getting in the way of the job, he tried one more shot. ‘And if I can bring you evidence that Bannerman is involved somehow?’

The chief constable looked at him as though he were a weapon which had fallen into dangerous hands. ‘Then of course I’ll allow you to bring her in,’ he said cautiously. ‘Good God, man, we’re not in the business of hushing things up. But don’t waste time that should be spent on the Baker woman, and if you can get a confession out of her before tomorrow night, it would reflect well on us all.’

Never mind that it’s the wrong one, Penrose muttered to himself, but he recognised a dismissal when he heard one. ‘I’ll do my best, Sir,’ was all he could manage to say with any degree of courtesy.

‘And you’re at the gala tomorrow night?’

‘Yes, Sir. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ He smiled, enjoying the nervous expression on his superior’s face.

‘Then I hope I can rely on you to put on a good show. There’ll be lots of important people there, and it wouldn’t do your career any harm to make a good impression. No nonsense, Penrose.’

‘Of course not, Sir.’ Still seething, Penrose shut the door behind him and went to look for Fallowfield. Perhaps the chief constable wasn’t entirely wrong after all, he thought, remembering the half-finished evening cloak which Marjorie had been working on for Celia Bannerman: a good show tomorrow night might be exactly what was needed.

‘I thought I might publish it, you know—the diary.’

‘You should do. It’s beautifully written. I imagine that people who can read it without feeling guilty will be fascinated by it—there’s a big market for angst by proxy.’

Marta laughed. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’

‘No, not really. Are you writing anything else?’ She and Marta had arrived at a fragile peace and, by an unspoken agreement, had lapsed into pleasantries to protect it. Josephine sensed that they both needed time to reassess what was going on between them; Marta had disappeared for ages on the pretext of getting them something to eat but, when she finally returned with plates of cheese and fruit, neither of them had touched it. While Josephine had been glad of the breathing space, she knew that sooner or later they would have to face their feelings or something precious would be lost; superficial chats on social occasions were not what she wanted from Marta, and she was surprised again by how important the relationship had become to her. ‘What about another novel? I can’t imagine you idle.’

‘I’ve started something, but I haven’t got very far with it. And you? I kept an eye out in the papers for a new play, but there hasn’t been anything.’

‘No, I’ve gone back to crime. It’ll be out early next year.’

‘Please tell me I didn’t drive you to it.’

‘Not to the crime, no, but there’s a character in it you might recognise—an actress. I gave her your name and Lydia’s personality.’

‘Determined to couple us in one way or another, then,’ Marta said, turning the bottle in the grate to warm the other side. ‘How is Lydia?’

‘Up and down. Work’s dismal, but the cottage is heavenly. She spends as much time there as she can, I gather.’

‘You gather? Don’t you see her much?’

‘We drifted apart a bit after what happened at the end of Richard, and it didn’t help that Queen of Scots wasn’t quite the career boost that she’d hoped for. We’re still friends, but it’s all a bit superficial at the moment. She’s never really forgiven me for being the one who was there for you when you needed someone. I get the feeling she doesn’t trust me any more.’ She gave a wry smile and poured the wine. ‘With good reason, as it turns out.’

‘You saved my life, Josephine—literally. Lydia couldn’t have done what you did to make me believe in a future; she would never have said the right things. And I haven’t even thanked you for that, have I? All those pages of pouring my heart out to you, and I never once mentioned it. It must seem ungrateful of me, but it felt like the sort of thing that I should say to your face—if I ever got to see your face again. So thank you.’

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the soft crackle of the fire. ‘Sometimes I think it would have been kinder to let you do what you intended,’ Josephine said at last. ‘What you went through instead can’t have been easy. I was at Holloway yesterday.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘It started out as research for a new book, but really I went for you.’

Marta lit a cigarette and stared at her. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘Because I wanted to understand. There’s so much that I don’t know about you, Marta. I met you as Lydia’s lover, and we’ve hardly seen each other—yet here we are, talking about love and deciding whether or not we should go to bed together.’

‘What do you want to know before you have your wicked way with me?’

Josephine took the cigarette out of Marta’s mouth and made her light another. ‘Don’t be so glib,’ she said irritably. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘No I don’t. I’m astonished and touched that you would bother to walk round Holloway just to understand what I’ve been through, but I don’t see why anything else matters.’

‘So if you could ask me anything at all, you wouldn’t bother?’

She shook her head. ‘Not if it was about the past, no. I don’t need to. How I feel about you won’t change just because I know what school you went to.’

Josephine flushed, and felt like a naive child who had failed to understand the simplest of life’s truths. The control she had marvelled at earlier was now all but gone and the power between them had shifted: at the beginning of the evening, it was Marta who had laid her soul bare, Marta who wanted something; now, Josephine wanted it too, and that made her vulnerable, as Marta clearly recognised. ‘Do you ever do what’s expected?’ she asked angrily.

Marta held up her hands in apology. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel like a Victorian parent scouting for a suitable daughter-in-law, but are you really so surprised that I don’t want to dwell on things that are over and done with? My whole past is dead, Josephine. There’s no one left to testify to the person I’ve been for most of my life—no parents, no lovers, no children. Lydia is the longest connection I have, and I’ve only known her for two years.’

‘That sounds quite liberating to me—you can be anyone you want to be.’

‘It’s not liberating, it’s terrifying. It’s almost as if I never existed, because my whole history died with the people I loved. I used to think that was the peculiar hell of the very old, you know, to be the last of your generation; now I know how easily it can happen. I want someone who can testify to my future, not my past. Is that really so unreasonable?’

‘No, of course it isn’t, but if Lydia is the longest relationship you have, why not try to make it last?’

‘Because everything’s come to pieces in my hands, Josephine. How could I inflict that on her?’

Josephine couldn’t resist raising an eyebrow. ‘But you’re happy to inflict it on me?’

‘You’re different—you can take it. Lydia’s not as strong as we are—she glosses over things. It’s a useful talent to have and I love her for it, but it’s no good in the end. She just hands me a plaster and sings while I bleed; you amputate the arm and tell me to get on with it.’

It was an insightful comment, and Josephine was reminded of why she admired Marta’s writing. ‘So you do still love her?’

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