Sidney acknowledged this. Then she said, "It was her eyes. I'd posed for Deborah - for the Portrait Gallery competition, you know? - but when the pictures weren't what she wanted, I thought of Jemima. Because of her eyes."
Barbara asked how she'd come to be acquainted with the young woman, and Sidney said,
"Cigars. Matt likes Havanas - God, they smell awful - and I'd gone there to get him one. I remembered her later because of her eyes, and I reckoned she'd make an interesting face for Deborah's portrait. So I went back and asked her and then took her along to meet Deborah."
"Went back where?"
"Oh. Sorry. To Covent Garden. There's a tobacconist in one of the courtyards? Round the corner from Jubilee Market Hall? It's got cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, pipes, cigarette holders ...all the bits one associates with smoking. Matt and I stopped there one afternoon, which is how I knew where it was and what he bought. Now whenever he's due back from one of his man-of-mystery jaunts, I pop in and get him a welcome-home cigar."
Bleagh, Barbara thought. She was a smoker herself - always intending to give it up although never quite intending enough - but she drew the line at anything whose scent reminded her of burning dog poo.
Sidney was saying, "Anyway, Deborah quite liked the look of her when I introduced them, so she asked her to pose. Why? Are you looking for her?"
"She's dead," Barbara said. "She was murdered in Abney Park Cemetery."
Sidney's eyes darkened. Exactly as her brother's did when he was struck by something, Barbara thought. Sidney said, "Oh Lord. She's the woman in the paper, isn't she? I've seen the Daily Mail ..." And when Barbara confirmed this, Sidney went on. She was the sort of woman who chatted compulsively - utterly unlike Simon whose reserve was sometimes completely unnerving - and she sketched in every relevant and irrelevant detail pertaining to Jemima Hastings and Deborah St. James's photograph of her.
Sidney couldn't make out why Deborah had chosen Abney Park Cemetery, as it wasn't exactly easy to get to, but you know Deborah. When she set her mind to something, there was no suggesting an alternative. She'd apparently scouted locations for weeks in advance of the photo shoot and she'd read about the cemetery - "something to do with conservation?" Sidney wondered aloud - and had done an initial recce there, where she'd found the sleeping lion monument and decided it was just the thing she wanted for background in the photo. As it turned out, Sidney had accompanied Deborah and Jemima - "I admit it. I was a bit put out that my photo hadn't suited, you know?" - and she'd watched the subsequent photo shoot, wondering why she had failed as a subject for the portrait where Jemima was possibly going to succeed. "As a professional, you know, one needs to know ...If I'm losing my edge, I must get on top of my game ... ?"
Right, Barbara agreed. She asked had Sidney seen anything that day in the cemetery, had she noticed anything ...Did she remember anything? Something unusual? Had anyone watched the photo shoot, for example?
Well, yes of course, there were always people ...And lots of men, if it came down to it.
Only Sidney couldn't remember any of them because it had been ages ago and she'd certainly not thought that she'd have to remember and God it was dreadful that Deborah's picture might have been the means ...I mean, wasn't it possible that someone had tracked down Jemima by using that picture, had found Jemima, had followed her to that cemetery ...except what was she doing there, did they know? ...or perhaps someone had kidnapped her and taken her there? And how had she died?
"Who?" It was Matt Jones speaking. Somehow he'd come silently up the stairs - Barbara wondered when he'd ceased pounding on the plywood and how long he'd been listening - and he was a looming, sweating presence in the bathroom doorway, which he filled up in a fashion that Barbara would have called menacing had she not also wanted to call it curious. Close to him now, she had a sense of both danger and anger emanating from him. He was sort of a Mr.
Rochester type, had Mr. Rochester been in possession of heavy weaponry in the attic and not a mad wife.
Sidney said, "That girl from the cigar shop, darling. Jemima ...What was her