‘So which year were you born?’ Diamond asked, not entirely convinced.
No reaction at all.
Gilbert rose to the challenge again.
‘I just told you,’ Mrs Jarvie said with a sigh, as if all the aggravation was coming from the visitors. ‘I’m ninety-six. If I get to a hundred I get a telegram from the Queen.’
‘Yes, but which year?’
‘Guv,’ Gilbert said.
Diamond looked to where the young DC was pointing. On a wall above the bed was a framed sampler in needlework with the letters of the alphabet and under it the words Bless this house. Julia Mary Jarvie, born 23rd July, 1913.
The mathematics checked. Somebody up there had pity on us, Diamond thought. Bless this house and bless you too, Julia Mary Jarvie. We’ve got a date to work to.
The old lady had noticed what they were looking at. ‘I worked that when I was only eight years old.’
‘Marvellous. Would you tell us about Nadia?’
‘Who?’
He raised the decibels. ‘The Ukrainian.’
‘Is it? I hardly ever go outside, and neither do the cats. They hate getting wet.’
This would not have been an easy process for a patient man, and Diamond wasn’t that. Gilbert stooped close to the old lady’s ear and repeated Nadia’s name with more success.
‘She was a refugee. What do they call them now?’
‘Asylum seeker?’
‘She didn’t have anything except the clothes she was wearing. I took her in as a Christian duty.’
‘For the church?’
‘Father Michael was always asking me to take in homeless girls. He’s crossed the River Jordan now.’
‘Popped his clogs,’ Gilbert explained in an aside, in case Diamond had missed the meaning.
Mrs Jarvie continued: ‘I must have had more than a dozen staying here over the years. Do you want to know about the others?’
As one, her visitors raised their palms to discourage her.
Diamond said to Gilbert, ‘Ask her if Nadia said anything about herself.’
This was a complex question for someone who heard about one word in five and didn’t always get that right, but this time there was a result.
‘She was working in London before she came here, but she didn’t like it there. Someone told her Bath was nice. Well, it is, isn’t it?’
‘Did she talk about her life in the Ukraine?’
She lowered her eyes and stroked the cat. ‘It was all very sad. She didn’t remember her mother and father. She grew up in an orphanage and when she got to sixteen a man came and took her away.’
This tallied closely with Vikki’s information. Any lingering doubt that they were speaking of the same Nadia could safely be dismissed. He listened keenly to every word.
‘He was a stranger, she said, and she had to go to work for him. She didn’t tell me what kind of work it was, but I had my own thoughts about that.’
‘Prostitution?’
‘Did you say streetwalking? I’m afraid it was something of the sort. As I was telling you, they sent her to London. I don’t know how long she was there before she ran away and made her way to Bath. Through God’s abundant mercy she found our church. We try and help lost souls.’
‘But she didn’t stay long.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
Gilbert did his shouting again.
‘No, she didn’t stay,’ she said. ‘She went off one afternoon and I didn’t see her again. To tell you the truth, it upset me. She could have told me if she was unhappy here. Sometimes I wonder if it was the cats that put her off. I don’t think she was comfortable with them.’
Diamond could sympathise, yet he managed a sweeping gesture that was meant to reassure. ‘Did she say where she was going?’
To his great relief, she seemed to tune into his voice, or he was pitching it at a better level. ‘I just told you I have no idea.’
‘While she was staying, did she ever speak of people she knew in Bath?’
‘Never.’
‘Did she bring anyone back to the house?’
‘Men, do you mean?’
‘Anyone at all.’
She shook her head. ‘She was no trouble at all while she was here. She was never late coming home, except for the day she left altogether.’
‘Which day was that?’
‘You want to know which day? You’re asking for the moon. How would I know one day from another after all these years?’
He glanced up at the sampler. ‘It must have been some time after your birthday on July 23rd.’
‘The beginning of August, then. Or thereabouts.’
‘You’ve no way of telling? You don’t keep a diary?’
‘A diary – with all the shopping and cooking and cleaning and gardening as well? When you have a house guest you don’t have time for anything else.’
He sensed that he probably was asking for the moon, so he got her back on track. ‘What did you do the night she left?’
She was still tuned in. ‘I went to bed at my usual time, thinking she’d soon be coming in. I slept upstairs in those days. I had the front room and hers was the back. She could have got in if she’d wanted. She knew I keep a spare front door key under the flowerpot beside the front door. In the morning I found the door of her room still open and the bed hadn’t been slept in.’
‘Were her things gone?’
‘What things? She didn’t have any things of her own. She used my towels, my face flannel, even my shampoo and soap. And her clothes were given by the church.’
‘Did you report it? Speak to Father Michael? Call the police?’
‘It’s a pity she didn’t find a little job. They say the devil finds work for idle hands. I do hope she didn’t go back to her old way of life.’
He had to repeat his question.
‘Report it? Not for some time. I thought she might come back, you see, and it would have seemed inhospitable if I’d reported her missing. In the end I think I told someone at the church, but by then she’d been gone a few weeks and no further action was taken. With people like that, who arrive out of the blue, you never know when you’re going to lose them again. Would you like to see a picture of her?’
A picture? Would he just?
‘There’s a wooden box under the bed.’ She turned to Gilbert. ‘See if you can reach it, young man. Pay no attention to anything else you might see there.’
Gilbert delved underneath and pulled out a dusty rosewood box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The cat on Mrs Jarvie’s lap was forced to move.
‘Now would you hand me my magnifying glass from the bedside table?’ She opened the box. It was stuffed with letters and photos. ‘The picture I’m looking for should be here somewhere.’
This, Diamond reflected, gritting his teeth, could take some time. Cultivate patience, you hothead. To get an image of Nadia will be momentous.
She didn’t take long. ‘Here we are. This was snapped in the garden by my neighbour, Mrs Brixham, now gone to paradise like Father Michael, poor soul. That’s Nadia with me preparing runner beans for dinner. It was such a nice day we sat outside. She had a lovely smile.’ She handed the photo across.
Although the 6 x 4 colour print had faded, the focus was sharp enough to provide a clear image. It showed a slightly less decrepit Mrs Jarvie beside a young woman on a garden seat. They had kitchen knives in their hands and a saucepan between them.
For Diamond this was a moment to set the pulse racing, the chance to see the face of the young woman whose tragic history he’d been investigating. In the picture she appeared untroubled, no doubt relieved that she’d found this safe haven. She was giving a wide smile to the camera, holding up a bean in her left hand to show what the picture was about. Her hair was blonde and long enough to have been drawn back, gathered and held in place with combs. She was wearing little or no make-up. He noted that she was wearing the expected jeans and a T-shirt. Her face was East European in shape, a fraction too broad to be conventionally pretty, but the smile caught a moment of happiness that gave life to the fading image, a point of contact that moved Peter Diamond more than he’d expected. No doubt he was indulging in sentiment he would have ridiculed in anyone else, yet he felt Nadia’s personality lived on in the photo, a young, laughing woman putting her grim past behind her without knowing she had only a few days left.