Angel looked round the little room. It was sparsely but adequately furnished with brightly coloured plastic bricks scattered on the rug by the hearth, two teddy bears on the floor by the door, and baby clothes everywhere.
Margaret Gaston carefully put her baby in a cot, pulled up a blanket to cover him and lifted up the cot side. She kicked off the rabbit slippers across a rug on polished bare boards and flopped onto a huge leather settee and lifted her legs onto the length of it. Her bare feet showed bright red toenails. She went through the business of pulling down her housecoat to cover her underwear. Angel had noticed and tried to remember he was old enough to be her father.
‘Phew! It’s taken me an hour to get him off,’ she said. ‘Sit down.’
There was only the one easy-chair opposite, so choice wasn’t a problem.
She leaned forward to the settee arm, picked up a packet of Silk Cut, shot one out, looked at Angel and waved the packet.
Angel shook his head. ‘No thanks.’
She clicked a disposal lighter into life and then pulled hard on the cigarette. Then she laughed and said, ‘If he doesn’t want to go to sleep, it doesn’t matter how tired he is, he just won’t bloody go.’
Angel nodded sympathetically.
‘What do you call him?’
‘Carl Alexander Gaston.’ She said it like making an announcement, and enjoying the way it sounded. ‘What’s yours?’ she added taking a big drag on the cigarette.
‘Detective Inspector Angel.’
‘No. Your first name.’
‘Michael.’
‘Michael?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s a nice name. But it’s so old-fashioned. Now, Carl Alexander is, sort of, cool and posh, isn’t it?’ she added with a smile.
‘Aye, it sounds very good,’ he said politely and pulled out an envelope and a ball-point. ‘There are some questions I need to put to you.’
‘Yes. Of course. It’s dead awful about Alicia. Perfectly dreadful. However will Charles manage? Have you found out who’s done it yet? Is it that Reynard that they keep on about on the telly?’
‘We haven’t found out yet, but we will. Now you used to clean for the Prophets didn’t you?’
Her eyes suddenly flashed. ‘Still do, I hope.’ She said, her mouth dropping open. ‘I have to have money, Michael. I get some from Social Security but it isn’t anything like enough. You think he’ll still want me to do the house and that, don’t you? I’ve never let him down, and I wouldn’t let him down now that she’s … that he’s on his own.’
Angel shook his head and wondered about his next question. Those long, shapely bare legs and feet moving about on the dark leather were distracting his concentration. She seemed to be unaware of it. He tried to look somewhere else.
‘I do three hours a day for four days a week. I do Tuesdays to Fridays inclusive.’
‘Yes. So you didn’t go to the Prophets on Monday last?’
‘No, Michael. Not Mondays.’
He blinked when she called him Michael. Hardly anybody ever did. He was not sure whether he objected. He let it go.
‘Who looks after Carl when you’re at the Prophets’?’
‘I take him with me. That’s what made the job so great. He’s happy in his pram. He would sleep most of the time. Alicia didn’t mind. She said she enjoyed the company. If he woke up, I either fed him or changed him. Alicia was very good about it.’
‘Did you ever see Mr Prophet?’
‘Oh yes. Not often, though. He was almost always at the office. He’s a lovely man. And so handsome. It’s a tragedy. When I heard about Alicia yesterday, I was gutted. I had to phone him. I had to tell him how sorry I was. And I wanted to say I’d do anything for him to help out while he got sorted. You know. More hours or different times … whatever he might have wanted, but I couldn’t get past that cow at the office.’
‘So you haven’t spoken to him since Mrs Prophet was found dead?’
‘No. Karen Kennedy wouldn’t let me. She always said he was with a client. Didn’t matter what time I rang, he was always with a bloody client.’
‘You’ve met her – Miss Kennedy?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’ve seen her.’
She pulled a face.
‘You don’t like her?’
She pouted and said, ‘She’s all right, I suppose. It’s just that she’s always there. I can never even get to speak to him, when she’s there.’
Angel rubbed his chin.
‘And would you say Mr and Mrs Prophet had been happily married?’
‘Oh yes, I should think so. Don’t really know, do I? I didn’t see much of them together, but what I saw … they both seemed to get on very well. It was difficult for him, of course, Alicia, being blind.’
He nodded.
She stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray and said: ‘You know, Michael, I told Trevor all this. Didn’t he tell you?’
‘Indeed, he did. But bear with me. I won’t be much longer.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said brightly. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘There’s no rush, Michael,’ she said pushing a shiny clump of hair out of her eye. ‘I don’t mind. You know I could go for days up here and see nobody … nobody at all. And I like older men. They talk more … intelligently, you know. Women talk about their kids and schools and clothes and how expensive things are. Men talk about … well, they talk about … well, different things,’ she said with a giggle and smiled at him. She crossed, stretched and then re-crossed her legs. She glanced across at the cot. She was pleased to see baby Carl was sleeping peacefully.
Angel rubbed his chin. He thought it was time his questions were asked, answered and that he got the hell out of there. ‘During your time at the Prophets’, did you ever see Lady Cora Blessington?’
‘Lady Cora Blessington? Sounds very posh. No. Who was she? Trevor asked me that?’
‘A tall, blonde woman, in a long blue dress and trainers, frequently seen at the Prophets’.’
‘No, Michael, I never saw anybody like that,’ she said thoughtfully. Then she added, decisively, ‘And being a blonde, believe me, I would have taken special notice of her.’ She laughed.
‘Did you ever hear either Mr or Mrs Prophet talk about Lady Blessington, refer to her, or to anybody like her? Her first name was Cora, by the way. Did they refer to anybody called Cora? Does that ring any bells?’
‘No, and I’m sure I would have remembered someone with a name like that.’
‘You never saw a letter or an envelope, took a message, saw a photograph or a card, with the name Lady Cora Blessington on it?’
‘No, Michael. And I would have remembered a posh name like Lady Blessington.’
Angel squeezed an earlobe between finger and thumb. He really had expected Margaret Gaston to have met and seen the missing woman and thereby have filled in the many gaps. The annoying thing was that the person who knew the most about Lady Blessington was Alicia Prophet and she was dead. Lady B was just like the lady in the three card trick. Now you see her, now you don’t. Some people had seen her, at a distance, fleetingly. Some people had never seen her at all. Angel had had some unusual cases over the years, but this was proving to be one of the most extraordinary.
‘Anyway, who the hell was she?’ Margaret Gaston said earnestly.
‘I wish I knew. There’s something else. There were some oranges in a plain white plastic bag found in the wheelie bin at Mr Prophet’s house on Monday last, the day Mrs Prophet was murdered. They appear to have been dumped there. They were bought from a particular stall in Bromersley’s open market. On that same day, Monday, at about two o’clock, you bought some oranges from the same stall. Were they the same ones?’
Her mouth dropped open.
‘You’ve been checking up on me. No. I told you I didn’t go near the Prophets’ house on Monday. Monday is my day off. Anyway, why would I want to buy oranges and then throw them in the bin?’