Past Reason Hated

‘Did you mention Caroline Hartley?’

‘Yes. It’s a fu

‘She liked to travel light,’ Banks said. ‘Still, it would have made it a lot easier for us if we had. Maybe they just lost touch with one another.’

Susan passed the paper over. ‘Anyway, she lives in Ke

‘I’m going down there tomorrow. There’s a few things I want to talk to Ruth Du

TWO

Perhaps I’m pushing too hard, Susan told herself later that evening. She was trying to decide what to wear for her first real date with James Conran, but she couldn’t help going over the past two days’ events in her mind. Banks had seemed so calm, so sure of himself, with Claude Ivers. Susan, left to her own devices, would have charged into his studio.

She also doubted that she would have left Redburn without bringing both Ivers and the Janowski woman in for a lengthy interrogation at the station. After all, they had both been at the Oakwood Mews house around the time of Caroline Hartley’s murder, and both had lied about it. She couldn’t understand Banks’s obsession with the record and the meaning of the music. In her experience, criminals weren’t intelligent enough to leave erudite musical clues behind them. Things like that only happened in the detective stories she had read as a teenager. But the music had been playing, she had to admit, and that was very odd indeed.

She decided on the blue cotton blouse and navy mid-length skirt. Neither were so close fitting that they would reveal what she thought of as an unacceptably thick waist. And she mustn’t overdress. Mario’s was a little up-market, but it wasn’t really posh.

The more she thought about the case, the more she thought about Veronica Shildon. Susan had felt intimidated by the woman’s reserve and poise; and the mysterious transition from happily married woman to lesbian disturbed her. It just didn’t seem possible.

Ivers could be right in blaming Caroline Hartley. Perhaps Veronica knew this too, deep down, and hated herself for allowing herself to fall so low. Then she found Caroline naked after seeing Patsy Janowski leave the house, and she hit out. That seemed as good an explanation as any to her. All they had to do was discover how Veronica had disposed of her bloody clothing. Surely if Banks put his mind to it, instead of dwelling on that damn music, he could come up with something. Gary Hartley, Susan thought, wasn’t capable of the crime. He might be bitter, but he was also weak, a captive in his father’s cold, decaying mansion.

Banks seemed to suspect everyone except Veronica Shildon – or at least he didn’t see her as a serious contender. Perhaps it was to do with his being a man, Susan thought. Men perceived things differently; they were unsuited to spotting subtle nuances. They were basically selfish and saw things only in relation to their own egos, whereas women spun a more general net of consciousness. She knew Banks was astute enough not to get side-tracked by his feelings, at least most of the time, but maybe he was attracted to Veronica Shildon. There was something in that tension between her strait-laced exterior and i

Rubbish, Susan told herself sharply. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Time to apply a bit of lipstick.

When she was ready, she looked again at her small tree and the few trimmings she had hastily put up on Christmas Eve. They made the place look a bit more like a home. As she looked around the room, she couldn’t really see what was missing. The wallpaper, red roses on a cream background, was nice enough; the three-piece suite arranged around the gas fireplace looked a little shabby, but nonetheless cosy; and the bookcase added a learned look. There was a beautiful pine table, too, in the corner by the window, where she ate. So what was it?

Looking again at the Christmas trimmings, she realized with a shock what was missing. So simple, really. If she had been on a case looking objectively at a suspect’s apartment and had seen one just like this, she would have known immediately. But because it was her own, she hadn’t paid it the same attention. The one personal touch, the Christmas decorations, pointed out that there was nothing of her there; the room had no personality. The furniture, wallpaper, carpet could all belong to anyone. Where were the knick-knacks that people accumulate over the years? Where were the favourite prints on the walls, the framed photographs of loved ones on the mantelpiece, the ornaments on the windowsill? There were no books, only her textbooks, which she kept in the guest room she used as a study. And where was the music? She had a music centre her parents had bought for her twenty-first birthday, but all she ever listened to was the radio. She had no records or tapes at all.

The doorbell rang. Well, she thought, slipping on her coat, perhaps it’s time I started. A nice landscape on the wall, over there, a Constable print or something, a couple of china figurines on the mantelpiece, a few books, and a record of that music Banks played in the car on the way back from Redburn yesterday. She had felt embarrassed and stupid when he had asked what she wanted to listen to, because she had no idea. She heard music on the radio, pop and classical, and enjoyed some of it, but could never remember the names of performers or titles of the pieces.

For some reason she had asked for some vocal music, and he had played a tape of Kiri Te Kanawa singing highlights from Madama Butterfly. Even Susan had heard of Kiri Te Kanawa, the soprano from New Zealand who had sung at the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Di. One song in particular sent shivers all the way up her spine and made the hackles at the back of her neck stand on end. Banks had told her the heroine was imagining the return of her lover in the aria, which translated as ‘One Fine Day’. Susan had taken a note of the title, and she would buy it for herself tomorrow, as a start to her collection. Perhaps she would also try to find out what happened in the story: did the lover return, as Butterfly dreamed?

The doorbell rang again. Smiling, Susan went downstairs to the front door to meet James. He told her she looked beautiful. She didn’t believe him, but she felt wonderful as they got into his car and drove off into the icy night.