‘Well,’ said Annie, ‘I can guarantee you that this will be much appreciated. I’m starving.’
‘Then tuck in.’
Annie did, and when she had filled her plate and her teacup, she returned to the armchair, and to business.
‘You said you wanted my opinion on something?’ Adele asked.
‘Yes.’ Annie managed to rest her cup and plate on the floor beside her without spilling anything and took the plastic evidence bag out of her briefcase. She would have to drop it off at the lab for forensic testing later, but it had seemed easier to come and show it to Adele at home rather than have her visit the station.
Adele held up the transparent bag and stared. After a few moments, she asked, ‘What is it?’
‘You’ve never seen it before?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a charm for a bracelet.’
‘Oh, yes. I know what you mean. We used to have them when I was a little girl. And those ones with your name on. What did they call them?’
Annie nodded. ‘Identity bracelets. Anyway, these charm bracelets are popular again.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why are you showing it to me?’
Annie put the Pandora charm back in her briefcase and managed to balance her scone on her knees and hold the cup in her hand. She took a sip of tea and a bite of buttery, jammy scone. It was delicious. ‘You don’t recognise it at all?’ she asked again when she’d swallowed a mouthful.
‘No. I’d remember. Mr Laurence would never wear anything like that.’
‘I don’t suppose he would,’ Annie said with a smile. ‘But perhaps a visitor, or a guest might?’
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Adele. ‘Nobody ever visited when I was there. Except the postman. Would you like another scone?’
‘No. I’m still OK with this. It’s delicious.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You said you clean at Mr Hadfield’s once a week, usually on a Thursday. Am I right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where do you clean?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s a big house. Three floors. You can’t get to every nook and cranny in a day, surely?’
Adele Balter sat up straight in her chair and thrust her shoulders back. ‘I defy you to find one spot of dust in that house,’ she said.
‘I know you’re proud of your work,’ Annie said, ‘and rightly so, but let’s be realistic about this.’
‘Many of the rooms are never used, especially those up on the third floor. They don’t take long, since nothing’s been disturbed. Just a quick flick around with the feather duster and a couple of minutes with the vacuum.’
‘Fair enough. What about the bathroom?’
‘Which one?’
Annie couldn’t for the life of her remember how many bathrooms there were. Three, perhaps, she guessed. ‘The big one upstairs. With the large hot tub on the platform and the bidet and everything.’ She refrained from saying that it was about as big as her entire cottage. Adele’s, too.
‘That’s the main bathroom, the one Mr Laurence uses most of the time, apart from the en suite in his bedroom, of course. But that’s just a walk-in shower and WC.’
We should all be so lucky, thought Annie. ‘So the big bathroom is the most used?’
‘Well, Mr Laurence likes a bath. I know that because he told me. “There’s nothing like a good long hot bath to wash away the cares of the world, Mrs B”, he said. A shower’s useful, of course, especially if you’re in a hurry, which he often is, but there’s nothing like a bath. Are you sure you won’t have another scone? I’ll never finish them all myself.’
‘No, really. That one did the trick. I’m full.’ Annie finished off her tea. Laurence Hadfield was right: there was nothing quite like a hot bubbly bath, a few scented candles, a good book and a glass of wine when you wanted to kick back and shut the world out. ‘So you clean that big bathroom every week?’
‘Yes. Even if it hasn’t been used. Like I said before, Mr Laurence is away quite a lot, so it doesn’t get used all that much. But I keep it clean, yes.’
‘And the floor and tiles?’
‘Of course.’
‘There’s a narrow gap between the back of the toilet and the skirting board.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Would you happen to clean around there, too?’
‘Of course, I do. You’ll never cut the mustard as a cleaner if you don’t get to the tough bits everyone else ignores, young lady.’
Annie felt suitably chastised and thought rather guiltily about her own bathroom. Only one, and very small, but it wouldn’t sparkle anywhere near as much as the ones blessed with Adele’s magic touch. ‘And did you clean it the last time you did the house? That would be the Thursday before the weekend Mr Hadfield disappeared, right?’
‘Yes. If you say that’s when he disappeared. And I most certainly did clean it.’
‘So if anything like that charm had been lying around, you’d have found it.’
‘Naturally. And it wasn’t.’
‘Clearly not.’ Which meant, if Adele Balter was telling the truth — and Annie believed she was — that the charm had ended up where it was found after the last Thursday Adele had cleaned the house. Poppy had disowned it — and Annie had no reason to disbelieve her, either — so whose was it, and how had it got there?
‘I know I asked you this before, but it’s even more important now that you give it some more thought. Did you ever notice any signs that Mr Hadfield had female company between your visits?’
‘What signs?’
‘I don’t know. An article of female clothing in the laundry, for example, or a trinket like the one I showed you left on a dressing table. An unusual scent, perfume perhaps, or a stain that couldn’t be explained. Maybe a long hair on the pillow or the back of the sofa.’ If Hadfield had been having a woman over to the house on a regular basis, then it stood to reason that she had left something behind, however minute a trace.
Adele Balter bristled. ‘Nothing of that sort at all. Mr Hadfield was a gentleman, a decent person.’
‘I’m not saying he wasn’t a perfect gentleman, but surely he must have had... needs. After all, he’d been a widower for over two years.’
‘He adored his poor deceased wife. And even if he had been doing as you suggest, he would certainly not have left any traces for me to discover. He would have made sure nothing remained to upset my sensibilities. He knows I’m very sen—’
‘What did you just say, Mrs Balter?’
‘Adele, please.’
‘Adele. What did you just say?’
‘That Mr Hadfield would never leave anything around the house that he thought might shock me.’
‘So if he had been seeing a woman, he would have cleaned up after himself?’
‘Well, yes. But he hadn’t been seeing anyone.’
‘Did he?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Did you ever notice any evidence that he’d been tidying up or cleaning up after himself?’
‘Once or twice, perhaps.’
‘Like what?’
‘Sometimes he washed his own bed sheets. He didn’t iron them, though. That would have been too much for him. That’s how I could tell.’
‘He put his own bed sheets in the washing machine?’
‘Sometimes. Yes. Why?’
‘My question exactly,’ Annie said, almost to herself. ‘Why?’ It wasn’t something, in her admittedly limited experience, that men usually did. Unless they had something to hide.
‘I assumed it was because he’d spilt something. He had a Teasmade, you know, and he was a devil for his morning cuppa in bed.’
‘Right,’ said Annie. ‘That must be it.’ Or not, she thought. ‘Did you do any laundry on your last visit?’