He extracted one of them from its envelope and straightened it out.
My Dearest Darlingest Darling,
I LOVE YOU!
Oh my dear, sweet darling, if you only knew what it means to me to be able to call you FRIEND! You are the dearest and sweetest and most loved of all friends. How could I not love you? How could anyone not love you? Everyone who sets eyes on you must fall instantly in love with you:
INSTANTLY
, I say!
And anyone who says they don’t is a
LIAR
. . . or a very big, stupid
IDIOT
.
Oh my dear Amélie, I know I am a very big stupid idiot myself – a fool, a nobody, a nothing – and nobody should pay any attention to a word I say, but this is the truth and I will say it and I hope you will take this one thing I say seriously, though you may discount everything else I say as the nonsense of a flighty fool:
YOU SAVED MY LIFE!
Yes, it’s true. I am not exaggerating. Your friendship, YOUR LOVE, your kindness . . .
SAVED MY LIFE
.
When I first came to this place I was friendless. The moment I looked upon you I was smitten, though I never dreamt that we could be friends. You were so beautiful and perfect. How could someone like you ever be the friend of someone like me? The others said you were aloof. (But let us not worry about what the others say. They are unkind. Bitter, resentful, jealous – FOOLS! I pity them.) Suffice it to say, they were not encouraging. But I saw something in your eyes. I saw that you were lonely too; that you were friendless. And in my simplicity – for I am afraid that I am a very simple person – I dared to look into your dear, sweet, sad eyes and, with a silent look of hope, I reached out to you.
AND YOU RESPONDED! Your eyes met mine. Your silent gaze answered mine. I even saw a tiny flicker of a smile upon your dear, sweet lips. Or was I dreaming? If I was dreaming, it is a dream I never want to wake from.
And so, at first, our friendship was conducted in silence. In those small, timid glances, stolen while no one else was looking. Such small, fragile, fleeting things, like sunbeams hanging in the dusty air, gone as soon as they are formed. How can such treasures be so insubstantial? They are nothing. They are everything. They were all we had.
Until one of us – was it you? Of course it was you! I should never have dared – ventured to give voice to the sentiments our eyes transmitted. How my heart fluttered to hear you speak to me at last! And to hear from you those words that saved my life: ‘
MA CHER AMIE
.’
My dear friend
– for you let me know straight away what your words meant. That was the first of our little ‘French lessons’. You have been a wonderful teacher and I a hopeless pupil. But I hope that you noticed that, when I wrote ‘amie’, I remembered to add the e that makes it feminine, as you have taught me. How sweetly you scolded me the last time I made such a mistake! Yes, sweetly. For I confess that I would rather be scolded by you than smiled upon by anyone else. You are such a darling, lovable scold. How I wanted to kiss away the sweet frown that fell across your brow. Is it bad of me to want to make you cross so that I can kiss away that sweet frown? Is that the reason why I make so many mistakes when you are teaching me? I would like to say it is, but sadly it is because I am stupid and a poor student. I am afraid that I will never improve because I get so much pleasure from being wrong and being scolded by you! (I can see your frown now as you read this. Oh dear, sweet, darling Amélie! Please do not be too cross with me. Or if you must be cross, let me kiss away your frown.)
From that day on, from the day you called me friend, and allowed me to do the same, my life changed. No. It is more than that. My life began. I came alive. You gave me life. You gave me reason to live. And, yes, it’s true, I really mean it:
YOU SAVED MY LIFE!
YOU ARE MY LIFE.
Your loving,
E.
Quinn handed the letter to Coddington, who read it with a devouring gaze.
‘The others are in a similar vein,’ said Quinn, handing them on. ‘All signed by “E”. And the stationery is the same in every case.’
‘What do you make of it?’ asked Coddington, handing the letter back. Quinn passed it on to Inchball.
‘It’s intensely passionate. There’s a naivété to the writing. Note the frequent capitalization of words and the almost childish phraseology in places. But there is an intelligence in evidence too. It’s remarkably free from spelling mistakes and the other signs of poor literacy. One might almost begin to suspect that the naivété is feigned. The writer has been educated to a respectable standard. Perhaps she comes from a good family . . .’
‘She?’ cried Inchball. ‘What about all this
I love you
guff? It’s a love letter, ain’ it?’
‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t written by a girl.’
Inchball groaned.
‘But I don’t think it’s a love letter in the sense you mean. It’s the protestation of a deeply felt emotional bond – of love, yes . . . but of the kind of love that is felt between two members of the fairer sex. It puts me in mind of a schoolgirl crush.’ Quinn turned to Coddington. ‘The girl next door who’s crying . . . what did you say her name was, sir?’
‘Albertine.’
‘She’s not French, though?’
‘No.’
‘So it’s unlikely to be her real name.’
‘You think she might be E?’
‘The depth of her grief seems proportionate with the intensity of feeling expressed in these letters.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ said Inchball.
‘Gently,’ warned Quinn. ‘For now, just find out what her real name is. Don’t mention that we’ve seen the letters. And when you have done that, find the housekeeper and bring her to me.’
Inchball shot out of the room with a heavy, forward-leaning stomp.
Quinn met Coddington’s questioning eye with a shrug. ‘Despite what you say about Blackley not allowing admirers, someone must have bought her the furs and the other things. I suspect Miss Mortimer may know more than she has told you.’
‘It’s not
that
that I was wondering about.’ Coddington cocked his head, listening to the ebb and flow of despair that sounded through the wall. They heard the door open and Inchball’s heavy tread. The detective sergeant’s muffled growl failed to stem the tide of weeping.
Quinn and Coddington watched each other warily as they strained to hear what was transpiring in the next room. More footsteps, Inchball’s judging by the weight and speed. Then a sound like a metallic groan: the bed springs straining under an additional weight, perhaps. The sobbing became somehow subdued – not calmer, but dampened, as though something large and soft had been placed over the mouth of the weeping girl.
Coddington made as if to dart from the room, but Quinn caught him by the arm and held him.
The timbre of anguish changed again. Desperate gasping for air. Then a sharp keening arose, a high, fierce spiral of sound. But it was immediately swallowed into the same smothering mass.
There was a low, indistinct rumble from Inchball.
The muted wail continued, before decaying into a jagged series of stifled sobs. The ferocity of the sobs gradually lessened at the same time as the interval between them increased.
Quinn rippled his brows questioningly as he faced Coddington; the other man’s answering nod conceded whatever was implied by Quinn’s expression.
Now there was only silence from the next room. For Quinn, it was a strangely thrilling silence, for it held in it the promise of a breakthrough. The girl had stopped crying. There was every possibility that she might speak.
At last it came. Her voice, a fragile tremor, little more than a throb in the air, but full of the heat of her tears. They strained to make out what she said but her words were barely articulate, a vocal wrenching rather than speech. Nevertheless, she had spoken.
‘We couldn’t get a word from her,’ whispered Coddington.
‘He is a father,’ said Quinn, not bothering to lower his voice. ‘He has a father’s heart.’
‘All the same, it is surprising.’
‘That’s what motivates him. It’s why he does this job. Why I want him in my team.’
‘And you, Inspector Quinn? What motivates you?’
Quinn looked down at the bed. ‘I don’t like to think of them getting away with it.’
Coddington smoothed out his moustache distractedly. ‘It must be more than that.’
‘Must it?’ Quinn shook his head to deter a reply. He held up the letters as if to ward off further prying. ‘Why did she hide these in the frame of her bed, do you think?’
‘Embarrassment?’
‘Then why not destroy them? No, she hid them in the way that we hide the things that are most precious to us. This is hidden treasure. She hid them from prying eyes. Perhaps from those who would coarsely mock the delicate feelings described in these letters. Or perhaps from one who might be jealous of this . . .’ Quinn waved the letters gently. ‘Love.’
‘You think the letters are connected to her death?’
‘Let’s say they pique my interest. Do they not yours?’ As an afterthought, almost insolently, Quinn added: ‘Sir?’
Coddington continued to fuss away at his moustache as if he was trying to work something out. ‘Yes, of course.’
In the next room the bed springs sighed musically as a weight lifted from them. Inchball’s terse footsteps clipped on the boards again. Quinn dashed for the door and intercepted him on the landing.
‘Did you get a name?’
‘Edna Corbett.’
Quinn nodded. It was as he had expected. ‘Edna.’
‘That’s your “E”, guv.’
‘In all likelihood.’
‘Shall I still fetch the housekeeper?’
‘If you please.’
Quinn returned to Amélie’s bedroom and passed on the name to Coddington.
‘So, you were right. She is our letter-writer.’
Quinn made no comment.
Coddington’s hand went back up to his moustache. ‘I say, Inspector Quinn, here’s a thought. You said that Amélie concealed the letters to hide them from someone who might be jealous.’
‘I merely put it forward as a possibility. A theory.’
‘Well, staying with that theory, what about this? Suppose this girl, Edna, or Albertine, or whatever you want to call her . . . suppose she was the jealous one? Suppose she was jealous of Amélie’s relationship with whoever gave her all these presents? It’s possible, ain’ it? Couldn’t that be a motive?’
Quinn looked down at the letters in his hand.
‘All that passionate feeling,’ Coddington continued. ‘Love can turn to hate like that, you know.’ He clicked his fingers.
‘But have you seen her? There’s hardly anything to her. She’s a mite. Do you really think she’s capable of strangling the life out of a healthy girl?’
Coddington parroted Quinn’s own words. ‘I merely put it forward as a possibility. A theory.’
Quinn screwed his face up in distaste.
‘What’s the matter, Quinn?’ Coddington’s tone was suddenly bullish. ‘Is it because you didn’t think of it yourself?’
The remark struck home. ‘It’s possible, of course. Sir. As yet, there are still many features of this case that we do not understand. We must try to bear all possibilities in mind. And not jump to any conclusions.’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘What you are suggesting is something along the lines of a
crime passionelle
, as the French have it. A crime of passion. And yet, the business with the lock rather militates against that. That smacks of premeditation, I think. And this girl, she may be capable of strangling her best friend, her beloved friend . . . But is she also capable of contriving this feat of mystification?’
‘Perhaps she had help?’
‘You are proposing a conspiracy? A man to engineer the mechanical trickery? Then I am afraid it looks less and less like a
crime passionelle,
which therefore undermines the reason why you suspected her in the first place.’ Quinn found himself stroking his own rather insignificant moustache. He realized with horror that he was unconsciously mimicking DCI Coddington’s trademark mannerism. His hand flew away from his face. He glanced quickly at the other man. Had he noticed?
Coddington’s gaze was angled down towards the bed. But the tail of a smile flickered across his lips and vanished.
Q
uinn turned his back on Coddington and crossed to the window, which looked out over a long, narrow garden at the back of the house. The sun was a soft flare high up to his right, just at the periphery of his vision. Sometimes, in the midst of a murder enquiry, it shocked him more to discover the sun still shining than to find a bloody handprint or a discarded garrotte. The garden itself had benefited from the recent downpours. It presented a lush, almost unruly abundance – predominantly green, but with other spring colours starting to come through. It was like something unleashed.
A vestigial path led away towards a high wooden screen at the bottom of the garden, fragments of paving stone peeping through the long grass of a loose-edged lawn. Long-established climbing plants – Virginia creeper, wisteria, ivy – covered the screen. Layers upon layers of concealment, everywhere he looked.
The structure of the house projected out on the right, with Amélie’s room being set back in relation to it. Two other windows were set in the wall that came out, curtains drawn: more concealment. Quinn sighed. He made a half-hearted effort to lift the sash window.
‘The window was fastened from the inside,’ Coddington informed him. ‘Besides which, as you can see, the woodwork is painted fast. It’s immovable.’
‘So whoever killed her did not get out this way?’
‘It would appear not.’
The door opened. Quinn turned to see Inchball return. He stepped to one side, revealing Miss Mortimer behind him.
The housekeeper’s face was set in an expression of impatient belligerence. ‘What is it now? I have work to do, you know. The girls will be back soon, expecting their lunch.’