Brock smiled. ‘You don’t believe it’s irrelevant, though, do you, Peg?’
She returned his look. ‘No, Chief Inspector, I do not. But’-she gave her tinkling laugh-‘from what one reads these days, I am almost the only one left.’
‘But the wheel will turn, eh?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Her eyes were bright as she answered him. ‘How short people’s memories are!’
‘What did you make of her notion that your mother might have passed down to you important documents which came from your great-grandfather?’
‘Nonsense!’ she chirped, her eyes still unaccountably shining. Kathy wondered if she was flirting with the old man. ‘She was full of silly theories, like all academics. Eleanor recognized her type straight away. She used to meet them all the time when she worked in the British Museum. So bossy, and so insistent, you know, like those awful American religious people who knock on your door. It was distressing, especially for Eleanor. She thought Eleanor had something hidden, something about her books.’
‘Did Eleanor feel threatened by her, would you say?’
Peg frowned and shook her head, ‘Eleanor did not feel that she needed to be protected, Chief Inspector,’ she said quietly. ‘She was a strong person. Of all of us she was the strongest. Perhaps that was why she believed, like our great-grandfather, that you do not need a strong Party, because they themselves were so strong and good.
‘But I’-and the persona of the sweet, frail and brave Queen Mother slipped back over her again-‘am not strong or good, and so I believe that we must have strong leaders and a strong Party to keep us upon the true road.’
Brock looked thoughtfully at her for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Well, Mrs Blythe, I believe that you at least are in need of protection. I am going to have to insist that you tell no one else where you are staying. And I am going to arrange for a woman constable to stay here in this hotel with you. If you would like her company, that’s fine, otherwise she will stay out of your way. But she will be here.’
‘I am sure that isn’t necessary, Chief Inspector, but I do appreciate your concern. Of course I would be delighted to have her company.’ And then, as she showed them to the door, ‘Eleanor’s model was her great-aunt, you know, another Eleanor, whose picture she hung upon her wall. Our Eleanor lived as noble a life, and died as noble a death, as that model she revered. I do have a great fear that when the time comes for me to join them, I shall not be as strong. I should so hate to let them down.’
‘Answer the door to no one until our officer arrives,’ Brock said. ‘She will phone you from the front desk first, and identify herself.’
25
There had been a slight thaw the previous afternoon, followed by a sharp drop in temperature during the night, so that the snow and slush had now solidified into rutted, glazed mounds of ice. When she got out of the car, Kathy had to pick her way carefully across the pavement and down the short drive leading to the front door of the semidetached house. Like most of the originally identical pebble-dash houses on the street, this one had been through several cycles of improvement, the original timber casements of its bow windows replaced by modern aluminium windows with mock diamond pane patterning, and a recent bedroom extension inserted into its tiled roof. The drive was almost the only one on this Saturday morning not occupied by a car, and its surface had not been cleared of snow.
It took Dr Botev so long to come to the door that Kathy almost gave up. Then she heard a shuffling from the inside, the door opened a little, and the doctor’s thick lenses peered out at her.
‘Kathy Kolla, doctor. From the police. I phoned half an hour ago.’
He led her through a small hallway made almost impassable by open cardboard removal cartons, and into the front room where more boxes were heaped so that an orange settee and armchairs resembled life rafts floating in a sea of wreckage. He sat down heavily without a word, leaving her to clear a pile of old towels off a seat opposite him. After the cold outside, the warmth of the central heating was suffocating and she unbuttoned her coat.
‘Nice street,’ she smiled at him, hiding her shock at seeing him so changed. He had lost at least twenty pounds, his shoulders sagged, his complexion was grey, and the stubble on his chin had grown into a bristly white beard stained yellow around the mouth.
‘How long ago did you move in?’
He stared at her for a moment, then mumbled, ‘October.’
Five months, she thought, and not a single box unpacked.
‘What are the neighbours like?’
He shook his head vaguely and seemed to withdraw into the cushions of the armchair. Kathy wondered if it had been a mistake to sit down.
‘Look,’ she said as she got to her feet, ‘would you think it rude if I made us a cup of tea? I’m gasping for one.’
He looked up at her, vaguely surprised.
‘Could you show me where the kitchen is?’
He didn’t move, so she went out herself, through the cluttered hall and found the kitchen door. It wasn’t as bad as she had feared-probably, she guessed, because not a lot of food got prepared there. There was a cup and saucer on the draining-board, half a dozen empty milk bottles in a corner, a bowl of half-eaten cornflakes on the small kitchen table. And in the fridge there was a homemade apple pie, with a slice removed.
She heard his shuffling footsteps behind her. ‘The apple pie looks good. Did one of your neighbours bake that for you?’
She was surprised when he answered, his voice quite clear, heavily accented and with that unexpectedly high pitch. ‘We always had apples. Even at the end of the winter, when everything else was gone, there was always an apple left at the bottom of one of the boxes.’
‘When was that, Dr Botev?’
‘After the war came to an end.’
‘Ah yes. Were you married then?’
He looked at her, puzzled. ‘No, no. The Great War.’
‘Oh… You must have been very young.’ She plugged in the kettle. ‘I wanted to ask you about Meredith again. You remember we talked about her last September? After she died?’ She turned and looked carefully at him to see if he knew what she was talking about, and was relieved to see a little of the old belligerence returning to his face.
‘Did you arrest someone?’
She shook her head. ‘We’re still looking. We need your help. I wondered if there was more you could have told us, about why Meredith was depressed, for example.’
He sat down on the only chair at the table and studied the cornflakes while Kathy found an open packet of tea.
‘The past,’ he said at last, ‘is a jealous mistress. No! A jealous mother!’ He corrected himself and nodded his head vigorously. ‘I remember every day more clearly the village where I was born. Pentcho and Georgi, Dora and Bagriana. The smell of the fires…’ For a moment he was lost, his face twitching between a smile and a frown. Then he continued, ‘But as to yesterday, or last week, or last September…’ He shook his head hopelessly.
‘But you do remember Meredith?’
He nodded. ‘She was so innocent. How could she be otherwise! She was English. The English are innocents. They have not had our experience.’
He thought some more. ‘ Her past was a jealous mother, all right. More jealous than most.’
‘Meredith’s?’
He looked at her, puzzled again. ‘No, Becky’s.’
Kathy’s heart sank. More distant memories. She put a cup of tea in front of him. ‘Who’s Becky, doctor?’
He shook his head. ‘She always listened to Becky.’
‘Who did? Meredith? Your mother? Who?’
He looked at her vaguely, and then seemed to come to a decision. He got firmly to his feet and said sharply to her, ‘Come!’
He led her into the other downstairs room which faced, like the kitchen, towards the snow-covered back garden. This time it was a bed which was crammed in among the boxes. He crouched and drew out a small suitcase from underneath it, and set it on the quilt. It was full of old photographs, all black and white.