quiet, these modern career women. But how could I empathize with her so, with those evil rags of dreams still drifting through my mind?
She spread the girl’s pathetic belongings around her hearthrug, gently trying to smooth out the crumplings. Her respect for them began to rebuild a whole human life before my eyes. Gay floral blouses, a white suspender-belt . . . a young and sexy girl, she must have been.
‘The letters are in French,’ I said lamely. ‘And there’s a diary . . . my French is hopeless. I thought you . . .’
She nodded, and opened a letter.
‘Ma Chère Annette . . . my dear Annette . . . once again I urge you to come home. Your father . . . has had a change of heart. He is no longer . . . angry. He misses you. I have found a family . . . a good and loving family . . . who will take the baby. They live quite near . . . twenty kilometres . . . you could go and see the child each weekend . . . they are not jealous people. It is so foolish of you . . . to imagine you can make a living in a foreign country, with the burden of a child. I urge you to reconsider . . .’
Hermione looked across at me. ‘Not much doubt what happened there . . .’
‘So why . . . kill the child?’
She took up the little diary, squinting at it, putting one finger to the outer corner of her right eye, to stretch it and help her vision. ‘Oh, God, this is hopeless. It’s as if it was written by a demented ant. And it’s more than half abbreviations . . . I can’t do anything with this, Morgan.’
She turned to the last page. ‘Oh, this last bit’s bigger and clearer. It says, “They shall have me, but they shall not have him.” Was that . . . what we found . . . a boy, Morgan?’
‘Crittenden said they reckoned it was.’
We were both silent a long time, while she fingered and rearranged the crumpled clothing, as if in a vain desire to help.
Finally, I blurted out, ‘What d’you reckon made her do it?’
‘How the hell would I know?’ Suddenly her face was the harsh ill-tempered face she could show on site, when things were going badly.
Then she seemed to get a grip on herself; and said more gently, almost apologetically, ‘Childbirth does strange things to women, Morgan. Sometimes they get very depressed after it. Sometimes they do feel like murdering their babies . . . the strain of looking after them gets too much, and yet they can’t bear to hand them over to anybody else. And don’t forget she was alone. And probably had no job . . . money running out . . . disapproved of at home. She must have been under a hell of a strain. Under the law, it’s called “infanticide”, not “murder”. The penalties are far less severe; even the law sort of understands.’
She shook her head, as if to shake slow, bad thoughts out of it. Then turned to me and said, ‘What are you going to do – with this stuff?’
‘God knows. I can hardly take it to Crittenden and say, “a clue has turned up to your murder as a result of a burglary.” ’
‘No, I can see you’ve made difficulties for yourself, with your dodgy dealing.’ She even managed a slight wry smile that had some affection in it. ‘I suppose . . . it all happened a long time ago. And she wouldn’t make a habit of murdering babies . . . I doubt if she’s a danger to anybody else, wherever she is now, poor thing. I only hope . . . she didn’t do away with herself.’
That was a new and worrying thought that hadn’t occurred to me.
‘I could fish around Crittenden a bit . . . after all, I am entitled to an interest in this case, seeing that we found the . . . body,’ I said.
‘Yes, I’d be interested to hear what he tells you. Did her parents ever report Annette as a missing person? Did she ever turn up?’
Then, quite suddenly and briskly she was packing up the suitcase again. Putting all the dreary frightening thoughts out of her mind. ‘I’ll make you that coffee now. Always as good as their word, the City Toy Museum . . .’
We