She looked as though she was telling the truth, and she had no reason to lie. His concern deepened. Perhaps Cantelli had forgotten to switch on his mobile phone. He'd try him again at home after he'd got what he wanted here. Trying hard to subdue his worries about Cantelli and not quite succeeding, he said, 'Irene Ebury — what did she talk about?'
Keynes looked surprised and irritated. 'I told you it was just ramblings.'
'Find someone who knows,' he said sharply. 'And preferably someone who has worked here since Irene was admitted.'
'You can't be serious.' She obviously saw that he was because she huffed for a while, then finally heaved herself up. Squeezing past him, she snarled, 'I'll fetch Cheryl.'
While he waited, Horton took the opportunity to have a quick poke around the office. There was little of any importance on the desk. He tried the filing cabinet. It should have been locked, but it wasn't. He slid open the drawer and flicked through the folders until he came to 'E'. Irene's file had gone. Horton wasn't really surprised. Either Angela Northwood, the daytime manager, had already archived it, or Lee or one of her colleagues, had got hold of it.
He straightened up at the sound of footsteps, and not having time to return to his seat, he took the one Marion Keynes had vacated. Cheryl breezed in.
'You wanted to see me,' she said, smiling at him.
He liked her immediately. There was warmth in her sparkling brown eyes and a love of life in the laughter lines on her middle-aged face. He waved her into the seat opposite.
'Tell me everything you can about Irene Ebury.'
She smiled sadly for a moment and looked reflective. Horton could see it was no act. He waited for her to ask why he wanted to know, but she didn't.
'I remember when she first came. Poor Irene. She didn't want to be here. She was aggressive and abusive and very adamant that there was nothing wrong with her. She was afraid. I could see that immediately. And who wouldn't be? She was ill and alone.'
Cheryl's words pulled him up with a guilty jolt. He cursed himself for not having spoken to her before. But he had seen Irene as a puzzle to be solved, a key to his mother's disappearance, an old woman with dementia. He hadn't seen the person, the woman, the real Irene Ebury and that was his downfall. In those few sentences uttered by Cheryl, and by her sympathetic expression, Irene had suddenly become a living, breathing person. He knew it was why he'd had so much trouble with this case. Like many before him, he had dismissed the residents as not 'real' people, God help him. He thought of Mrs Kingsway and her claims of an intruder. Something had sparked that idea in her mind. It must have been based on the truth, but was that in the past or more recent?
'I wouldn't have said that Irene was in an advanced state of vascular dementia then,' Cheryl continued. 'And she could have lived with someone, or even on her own with care, for a while, but she would have deteriorated within a year or so and she certainly did, especially when her son was refused his appeal. She had very lucid moments, when she would tell me that Peter was innocent. Oh, she admitted he'd committed crimes in the past, but she didn't believe he could have killed that security guard. She was convinced he would be released. When he wasn't, she went downhill quite quickly. It was as if what little light there was inside her, which her dementia hadn't already extinguished, finally went out. Then she had a couple of small strokes.'
Horton assimilated what she was saying. On what grounds had Peter Ebury appealed? He'd been caught red-handed.
He said, 'I read somewhere that dementia patients often regress to a part of their past life. Not only in speech but also often in behaviour. How did Irene behave?'
Cheryl smiled. 'She was back at the catwalk, pretending to be a model.'
'She was Miss Southsea in 1957.'
'So she said. I think she must also have worked in a nightclub or casino, because she always wanted to serve the drinks and she loved her cards. She would get quite agitated if we wouldn't give her a pack, she kept shuffling them.'
'Did she ever mention anyone from her past?'
'Just the famous people she'd met.'
Which could have been true, Horton thought, if she had worked in a club in London. 'Anyone in particular?'
'Frank Sinatra.'
Horton smiled with Cheryl. Marion Keynes had also mentioned him. He'd rule that out. 'Do you think you could write down the names for me, as and when you remember them? Any names that you can recall, whether famous or not.'
'DC Lee has already asked me to do that.'
He hid his surprise and cursed silently. 'When?'
'Yesterday.'
So she must have returned here last night because Cheryl wouldn't have been on duty until after six thirty.
He said, 'I'd like you to give the list to me.' But you're on holiday, said his small voice. He ignored it.
'Did anyone visit Irene over the years?'
'No.'
'Did you see her belongings?'
Cheryl looked confused at the question. Horton elaborated. 'Letters, photographs?'
'Oh. Yes. She had a couple of photographs of her son when he was a little boy. He was very good-looking. Fair, with bright blue eyes.'
'Any others?'
Cheryl thought hard. 'It's years since I've seen them, but, yes, there were others. Irene was in a swimsuit on holiday abroad.'
'How do you know it was abroad?'
'Well, it didn't look like Bognor.' She smiled. 'The sea was too blue. Irene must have been in her early thirties. She was beside a swimming pool at a villa and there were a number of people in the picture, but I can't remember what they looked like. Apart from that I don't remember seeing any other photos and there were no letters.'
The door opened and Marion Keynes glowered at him. 'I need Cheryl to help get our residents to bed. Mrs Kingsway's being difficult again.'
'Does she still think she saw an intruder in her bedroom?' Horton addressed Cheryl.
'I'm afraid so. It's why she doesn't want to go to bed. She's frightened that he'll come back and kill her.'
'There was no intruder,' Marion Keynes declared hotly.
Horton said, 'Then why say it?' He turned to Cheryl. 'She couldn't have seen Dr Eastwood because I believe you took Mrs Kingsway from the room before he arrived.'
'Yes. And she was sound asleep when Marion called me into the room.'
He rose, feeling frustrated. He was on the Intelligence Directorate's track, but how far behind them he didn't know. And he'd got no nearer to finding Cantelli.
'I'll show you out,' Cheryl said.
In the corridor Horton could hear an old lady protesting very loudly and forcefully and another person trying to reassure her without success.
'Mrs Kingsway,' Cheryl explained, with an anxious glance at Horton before hurrying to the aid of her colleague, leaving Horton to follow her into the residents' lounge.
Mrs Kingsway was a small and very frail elderly lady and clearly distressed. She was waving her arms about and shouting. Horton couldn't make out what she was saying. She wouldn't let Cheryl or the slight, fair-haired girl in her late twenties touch her. The television was blaring out, ironically he noticed, with a repeat of the Diving in Devon series and there was Nicholas Farnsworth's handsome face glistening with seawater, whilst behind him was the squat, sturdy and studious Jackson.
'It's her favourite programme,' Cheryl tossed over her shoulder at Horton. 'She can't bear it if it's not on the television. We've got a recording of it which we play, but we can't have it on twenty-four hours a day. Now, Marjorie, you're quite safe. No one's going to hurt you.'
Cheryl gently took her arm, but Marjorie Kingsway pulled away from her and at the same time managed to slip out of the sleeve of her cardigan.
Horton stared at an ugly purple stain on the top of Mrs Kingsway's frail arm. If he wasn't mistaken, then it was a bruise.