"I hoped to persuade you there were other options."
"Every one of which is dependent on your charity."
Sarah sighed. "Is that so terrible?"
"Of course. I served forty years for my inheritance. You served one. Why should I have to beg from you?"
Why indeed? There was no justice in it that Sarah could see. "Is there any point in my coming here again?"
"No." Joanna stood up and smoothed the creases from her skirt. "It can only make matters worse."
Sarah smiled wryly. "Can they be any worse?"
"Oh, yes," she said with a twisted little smile. "I might start to like you." She waved dismissively towards the door. "You know your way out, I think."
DS Cooper was gazing thoughtfully at Sarah's car when she emerged from the front door. "Was that wise, Dr. Blakeney?" he asked as she approached.
"Was what wise?"
"Bearding the lioness in her den."
"Do lionesses have beards?" she murmured.
"It was a figure of speech."
"I gathered that." She observed him with fond amusement. "Wise or not, Sergeant, it was instructive. I've had my anxieties laid to rest and, as any doctor will tell you, that's the best panacea there is."
He looked pleased for her. "You've sorted things out with your husband?"
She shook her head. "Jack's a life sentence not an anxiety." Her dark eyes gleamed with mischief. "Perhaps I should have paid a little more attention when my mother was making her predictions for our future."
"Marry in haste, repent at leisure?" he suggested.
"More along the lines of 'She who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.' Which I, of course, countered with 'The devil has all the best tunes.' " She made a wry face. "But try forgetting 'Hey, Jude' or 'Twenty-four hours from Tulsa.' Like Jack they have a nasty habit of lingering in the memory."
He chuckled. "I'm more of a 'White Christmas' man myself, but I know what you mean." He glanced towards the house. "So, if it's not your husband who's set your mind at rest it must be Mrs. Lascelles. Does that mean she's decided to accept the terms of the will?"
Again Sarah shook her head. "No. She's convinced me she didn't kill her mother."
"And how did she manage to do that?" He looked very sceptical.
"Feminine intuition, Sergeant. You'd probably call it naivety."
"I would." He patted her arm in an avuncular way. "You really must learn not to be so patronizing, Doctor. You'll see things in a different light if you do."
"Patronizing?" echoed Sarah in surprise.
"We can always call it something else. Intellectual snobbery or self-righteousness, perhaps. They cloak themselves just as happily under the guise of naivety but, of course, naivety sounds so much less threatening. You're a very decided woman, Dr. Blakeney, and you rush in where angels fear to tread, not out of foolishness but out of an overweening confidence that you know best. I am investigating a murder here." He smiled grimly. "I don't pretend that I would ever have liked Mrs. Gillespie because I'm rather inclined to accept the established view that she was an evil-minded old bitch who got her kicks out of hurting people. However, that did not give anyone the right to strike her down prematurely. But the point I want to stress to you is that whoever killed her was clever. Mrs. Gillespie made enemies right, left and centre, and knew it; she was a bully; she was cruel; and she trod rough-shod over other people's sensibilities. Yet, someone got so close to her that they were able to deck her out in a diabolical headdress and then take her semi-conscious to the bath where they slit her wrists. Whoever this person was is not going to make you a free gift of their involvement. To the contrary, in fact, they will make you a free gift of their non-involvement, and your absurd assumption that you can tell intuitively who is or who is not guilty from a simple conversation is intellectual arrogance of the worst kind. If it was so damned easy-forgive my French-to tell murderers from the rest of society, do you not think by now that we'd have locked them up and confined unlawful killing to the oddities page of the history textbooks?"
"Oh dear," she said. "I seem to have exposed a nerve. I'm sorry."
He sighed with frustration. "You're still patronizing me."
She opened her car door. "Perhaps it would be better if I left, otherwise I might be tempted to return the insult."
He looked amused. "Water off a duck's back," he said amiably. "I've been insulted by professionals."
"I'm not surprised," she said, slipping in behind the wheel. "I can't be the only person who gets pissed off when you decide to throw your weight about. You don't even know for sure that Mathilda was murdered, but we're all supposed to wave our arms in the air and panic. What possible difference can it make to anyone if I choose to satisfy myself that Mrs. Lascelles hasn't disqualified herself from a cut of the will by topping the old lady who made it?"
"It could make a lot of difference to you," he said mildly. "You could end up dead."
She was intensely scornful. "Why?"
"Have you made a will, Dr. Blakeney?"
"Yes."
"In favour of your husband?"
She nodded.
"So, if you die tomorrow, he gets everything, including, presumably, what Mrs. Gillespie has left you."
She started the car. "Are you suggesting Jack is planning to murder me?"
"Not necessarily." He looked thoughtful. "I'm rather more interested in the fact that he is-potentially-a very eligible husband. Assuming, of course, you die before you can change your will. It's worth considering, don't you think?"
Sarah glared at him through the window. "And you say Mathilda was evil-minded?" Furiously, she ground into gear. "Compared with you she was a novice. Juliet to your lago. And if you don't understand the analogy, then I suggest you bone up on some Shakespeare." She released the clutch with a jerk and showered his legs with gravel as she drove away.
"Are you busy, Mr. Blakeney, or can you spare me a few minutes?" Cooper propped himself against the door-jamb of the summer-house and lit a cigarette.
Jack eyed him for a moment, then went back to his painting. "If I said I was busy would you go away?"
"No."
With a shrug, Jack clamped the brush between his teeth and took a coarser one from the jar on the easel, using it to create texture in the soft paint he had just applied. Cooper smoked in silence, watching him. "Okay," said Jack at last, flipping the brushes into turpentine and swinging round to face the Sergeant. "What's up?"
"Who was lago?"
Jack grinned. "You didn't come here to ask me that."
"You're quite right, but I'd still like to know."
"He's a character from Othello. A Machiavelli who manipulated people's emotions in order to destroy them."
"Was Othello the black bloke?"
Jack nodded. "lago drove him into such a frenzy of jealousy that Othello murdered his wife Desdemona and then killed himself when he learnt that everything lago had said about her was a lie. It's a story of obsessive passion and trusts betrayed. You should read it."
"Maybe I will. What did lago do to make Othello jealous?"
"He exploited Othello's emotional insecurity by telling him Desdemona was having an affair with a younger, more attractive man. Othello believed him because it was what he was most afraid of." He stretched his long legs in front of him. "Before Othello fell on his sword he described himself as 'one that lov'd not wisely but too well.' It gets misused these days by people who know the quote but don't know the story. They interpret 'lov'd not wisely' as referring to a poor choice of companion, but Othello was actually acknowledging his own foolishness in not trusting the woman he adored. He just couldn't believe the adoration was mutual."
Cooper ground his cigarette under the heel of his shoe. "Topical stuff then," he murmured, glancing towards the sleeping-bag. "Your wife's not loving too wisely at the moment, but then you're hardly encouraging her to do anything else. You're being a little cruel, aren't you, sir?"