"No, precious. It's the truth. I saw it. He absolutely could not read."
"D'you mean he had trouble with reading?" Nkata asked. "Or he couldn't read."
He couldn't read, she said. In fact, while he knew the alphabet, he had to print it out in order to know it for certain. It was the most peculiar thing she'd ever seen. Because of this, she'd wondered more than once about how he'd gone through school. "Reckoned he'd been performing for the instructors in ways not entirely academic," she concluded, "if you know what I mean."
THROUGHOUT THE REST of the day, Meredith Powell felt a dull fire burning within her. It was accompanied by pounding in her head, one that wasn't connected to pain but rather to the words she's dead. The simple fact of Jemima's death was bad: It put Meredith into a state of disbelief and sorrow, and the sorrow was more profound than she would ever have expected to feel for someone who was not a member of her immediate family. Beyond the fact of her death, though, was the additional fact that Jemima had been taken away before Meredith had been able to put things right between them, and this gnawed at her conscience and her heart. She could no longer remember what it even was that had actually so damaged their long friendship. Had it been a slow chipping away of their affection for each other, or had it suffered one deadly blow?
She couldn't recall, which told her how unimportant it must have been.
"I'm not like you, Meredith," Jemima had said so many times. "Why can't you just accept that?"
Because having a man's not going to make you stop being afraid had been the answer.
But it had been a reply that Jemima had pooh-poohed as an indication of Meredith's jealousy.
Except she hadn't been jealous, not really. She'd merely been concerned. She'd watched Jemima flit from boy to boy to man to man for years in a restless search for something not a single one of them would ever be able to give her. And that had been what she'd wished her friend to understand and what she'd tried again and again to get across to her until finally she'd thrown up her hands - or Jemima had done, because she couldn't remember now - and that had been that as far as friendship went between them.
But there had been a bigger issue that Meredith had failed to see till now: Why had it been so incredibly important to her that Jemima Hastings see things Meredith Powell's way?
And for that question, Meredith had no answer. But she was determined to find one.
She phoned Gordon Jossie's house before leaving work at the end of the day. Gina Dickens answered, and this was good, as it was Gina Dickens whom Meredith wished to see. She said, "I need to talk to you. Will you meet me? I'm in Ringwood just now, but I can meet you anywhere, wherever you like. Just not at ...not at Gordon's please." She didn't want to see the house again. She didn't think she could face it just now, not with another woman there, happily going about a life with Gordon Jossie while Jemima lay dead, cold, and murdered up in London.
Gina said, "The police have been here. They said that Jemima - "
Meredith squeezed her eyes shut, and the telephone felt cold and slick in her hand. She said, "I need to speak with you."
"Why?"
"I'll meet you. You name the place."
"Why? You're making me nervous, Meredith."
"I don't mean to. Please. I'll meet you anywhere. Just not at Gordon's."
There was a pause. Then Gina named Hinchelsea Wood. Meredith didn't want to risk a wood, with all its solitude and everything that solitude suggested about danger, no matter what Gina Dickens said about being nervous of her and all that this was supposed to imply about Gina Dickens' apparent innocence. Meredith suggested a heath instead. What about Longslade Heath?
There was a car park and they could -
"Not a heath," Gina said at once.
"Why not?"
"Snakes."
"What snakes?"
"Adders. There're adders on the heath. You must know that. I read that somewhere, and I don't want to - "
"Hatchet Pond, then," Meredith cut in. "It's outside Beaulieu." They agreed on this.
There were other people at Hatchet Pond when Meredith arrived. There were ponies and foals as well. The people strolled along the edge of the water, they walked their dogs, they sat in cars reading, they fished,