A Great Deliverance - By Elizabeth George Page 0,55

I done that my daughter believes the key to happiness is to look exactly like the Princess of Wales?" She squeezed her fingers into her forehead. "William would have known what to do. What a mess I am without him."

Wishing to avoid a fresh onslaught of tears, Lynley spoke quickly to divert her. "Little girls always have someone they admire, don't they?"

"Yes," Olivia said. "Oh yes, how true that is." She'd begun twisting his handkerchief into an appalling little rope. Lynley winced as he saw it mangled. "But I never seem to have the right thing to say to the child. Everything I try seems to end in hysterics. William always knew what to say and do. Whenever he was here, everything went smoothly. But the moment he was gone, we'd begin to fight like cats and dogs! And now he's really gone! What's to become of us?" She didn't wait for an answer. "It's her hair. She hates having red hair. She's hated it ever since she learned to speak. I can't understand it. Why is a nineyear-old girl so damned passionate about her hair!"

"Redheads," Lynley noted, "are generally passionate about everything."

"Oh, that's it! That's it! Stepha's quite the same. You'd think Bridie was her clone, not her niece." She drew in a breath and sat up in her chair. Footsteps came running down the hall.

"Lord, give me strength," Olivia murmured.

Bridie entered the room, a towel wrapped precariously round her head, her pullover - which she hadn't bothered to remove in her haste to obey her mother's instructions - thoroughly soaked round her shoulders and down most of her back. She was followed by her duck, who walked like a seaman, with a peculiar rolling gait.

"He's crippled," Bridie announced, noticing Lynley's inspection of the fowl. "When he swims, he jus' goes round in a big circle, so I don't let him swim unless I'm there. We took him swimming lots last summer, though. In the river. We made a dam just outside and he had ever so much fun. He'd plunk himself in the water and go round and round. Huh, Dougal?" The mallard blinked his agreement and searched on the floor for something to eat.

"Here, let me see you, MacBride," her mother said. The daughter came forward, the towel was removed, the damage was surveyed. Olivia's eyes welled with tears again above her daughter's head. She bit her lip.

"Looks like it just needs a bit of a trim," Lynley interposed hastily. "What do you think, Sergeant?"

"A trim ought to do it," Havers agreed.

"I think the thing to do, Bridie, is to give up on the Princess of Wales idea. Now," Lynley added as the child's bottom lip trembled, "you've got to remember that your hair is curly. Hers is quite straight. And when Sinji told you that she couldn't make it go in that style, she was telling you the truth."

"But she's so pretty," Bridie protested. Tears threatened once again.

"She is. Absolutely. But it would be a fairly strange world if every woman were exactly like her, wouldn't it? Believe me, there are many women who are very pretty and look nothing like her."

"There are?" Bridie gave a longing glance to the crumpled photograph again. A large smear of grease was sitting on the Princess's nose.

"You can believe the inspector when he says that, Bridie," Havers added, and her tone implied the rest:

He's a bit of an expert on the subject.

Bridie looked from woman to man, sensing undercurrents that she didn't understand.

"Well," she announced, "I s'pose I got to feed Dougal."

The duck, at least, looked as if he approved.

The Odell sitting room was only a slight improvement over the kitchen. It was hard to believe that one woman and one child could produce such disarray. Clothes lay piled over chairs as if mother and daughter were in the process of moving; knickknacks perched in unlikely positions on the edges of tables and window sills; an ironing board was set up in what looked like permanent residence; an upright piano spat sheet music onto the floor. It was havoc, with dust so thick that it gave the air flavour.

Olivia appeared to be unaware of the mess as she absently gestured them towards seats, but she looked about as she took her own and sighed in unembarrassed resignation. "It's usually not this bad. I've been...it's been..." She cleared her throat and shook her head as if to get her thoughts in order. Once again the fingers went through the wispy,