‘What do you mean?’
‘She dropped the feather from her hat on the platform and I wanted to give it back to her, but Lydia was late and there wasn’t time.’
‘You couldn’t have saved her,’ he said, gently. ‘Whoever did this was hell-bent on violence, so thank God you didn’t get in the way.’
Josephine’s face was still turned to the window, but he could tell from her voice that any counsel against self- reproach was futile. ‘You know, just an hour ago I was looking across at the theatre, half expecting to see her in the queue already,’ she said, sadly. ‘And I found myself rather looking forward to it. It’s funny, isn’t it, how quickly some people make an impression on you?
Yesterday was the first time I’d ever set eyes on the girl, but I could probably tell you more about her than people I’ve known for years. The important stuff, anyway – what she was like, what she cared about.’
42
‘And what was she like?’
‘She was that quiet sort which always gets overlooked. I don’t mean quiet in the literal sense, but most people would probably have thought her quite inconsequential. If she were at a party, she’d be the person you spoke to until you found someone more important. I think she’d got so used to people looking past her that she didn’t even notice any more. She certainly didn’t seem to mind, because there wasn’t an ounce of self-pity about her.’
‘Not an obvious murder victim, then. She doesn’t sound the sort to inspire that sort of extreme emotion.’
‘No, not a victim in any sense of the word. It’s a cliche, but she made the best of what life dealt her, and that somehow makes all this even worse. I can’t help feeling that when you’ve worked hard to come to terms with how you entered the world, you ought to have a bit more say over how you leave it – but I don’t have to tell you that. You know she was adopted, I suppose?’
‘Yes, we spoke to her uncle. He came to the station to meet her.’
‘Poor man. From what she said, they were very close.’
‘What else did she tell you about herself?’
‘Well, her adoptive parents are from Berwick-upon-Tweed –
that’s where she got on the train – but her father died quite recently. She worked with her mother – I expect you’ll have found the hats they made by now. It wasn’t unusual for her to be coming to London: her aunt and uncle have a shop here and she always brings the new season’s stock down and helps out a bit. The uncle
– Fred, I think his name is, or Frank?’
‘Frank – he’s a driver for Lyons.’
‘Frank, yes – he loves theatre as well, so when she was here they spent a lot of time together. Although I suppose that must have changed now that she’d met her young man.’
‘So she was definitely seeing someone? Did she mention his name?’
‘No, I don’t think she did. She just blushed a lot. Romance was new to her, you see, and it goes back to what I said about her not being used to attention. She seemed quite astonished that anyone should want to pick her out, almost as if she didn’t deserve it. The 43
only thing I can tell you about him is that he works in theatre. She said he was taking her to see
No matter how hard he tried to keep an open mind, everything kept coming back to that play. ‘Isn’t this all a bit coincidental?’ he asked. He tried to choose his next words carefully so as not to alarm her, but there was a limit to how far he could skirt around the issue. ‘Your biggest fan is on the same train and just happens to recognise you. And then she’s killed.’
‘It was theatre in general she loved, not just me. I know I’m not exactly a household face, but anyone who read as much about the stage as Elspeth did is bound to have seen a picture somewhere,’
said Josephine impatiently, suddenly conscious that this was the first time she had been able to bring herself to use the dead girl’s name. ‘Anyway,’ she continued wryly, ‘the only people who don’t believe in coincidence are the ones who read detective novels – and policemen. These things happen, Archie, even if we’re not supposed to use them in books.’
Archie nodded and conceded defeat as he often did with Josephine, although his mind was still terribly uneasy about the relevance of her play to the murder and her close proximity to what had taken place. He looked at his watch, wondering exactly how much he should tell her about the scene which had been created to mark Elspeth’s death. ‘It’s time I went. I’m seeing the pathologist in twenty minutes, then I’ll have to visit the family to see what else they can tell me. Perhaps they can shed some light on the boyfriend. There’s one last thing before I go, though: those souvenir dolls from the play – did Elspeth have any with her?’
‘There could have been something in her bag without my noticing. I doubt it, though, because most of the contents ended up on the floor at one point. Hideous things – I can’t imagine why anybody would want one, but it’s the sort of thing she might have owned and she had an awful lot of other luggage. Why on earth do you want to know?’ He said nothing, but looked more preoccupied than ever. ‘What’s the matter, Archie?’ asked Josephine, puzzled to see her own sadness reflected in someone who had no 44
personal connection with the events he was now investigating.
‘You’re no stranger to death. You’ve seen what people can do to each other time and again. Of course you can’t let yourself become immune to it, but I’ve never known you to feel like this about a stranger.’
‘That’s the trouble. It’s not a stranger I’m worried about. I can’t tell you the details but, from the way the body was left, I have to assume a connection to
‘Now, that could simply be because the victim was obsessed with the play; it could be that the boyfriend did it in a fit of jealousy and
– one of your coincidences – he just happens to work in the theatre. On the other hand, because Elspeth doesn’t seem the type to have enemies, it could be that someone wants to hurt you, either by damaging your reputation or, God forbid, by actually harming you.’
The implications of what Archie was saying were not lost on Josephine, although he might have guessed that
