‘And besides,’ I said, ‘we know that wasn’t what troubled you about Mirren and Dugald. That was a remarkable tale you dreamed up, Mr Aitken, and you told it well, but we know exactly why you were against the marriage.’
He stared hard at me, without answering, probably trying to work out if I were bluffing.
‘Mrs Hepburn told us yesterday,’ said Alec. Jack Aitken did not turn to him and did not answer. He simply deflated and his eyes dropped until he was staring at the floor.
‘What we want to know, really, is if your wife found out.’ Again there was no answer. ‘If perhaps she told Mirren.’ Yet more silence. ‘If that perhaps was why Mirren-’
‘No!’ said Jack, his head jerking back up. ‘Abby doesn’t know. And Mirren certainly didn’t know. I told you, she was so kind to me the last weeks, she can’t have known about my… lapse.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten. Well, in that case, can you explain why Abby was against the marriage?’
‘She’s a dutiful daughter.’
‘And why she was so sure Mirren wouldn’t elope?’
‘So was Mirren,’ he said. The look that crossed his face was the genuine one I had seen once or twice before. When all was said and done, he was not a monster and his child had died. Not his only child, since he had at least one (and possibly four) with Hilda, but his child, all the same.
‘We won’t detain you any longer,’ I said, trying to speak kindly.
‘Let me see you out,’ Jack said, standing.
‘Oh, we’re not finished,’ said Alec, who had clearly not been entertaining any such sentimental thoughts as mine. ‘We’ll ring the bell for Trusslove when we’re ready to speak to your wife.’
‘You won’t tell her, will you?’ said Aitken.
‘Not if we can avoid it,’ I said. ‘I’m not in the business of doling out gratuitous pain.’
Jack Aitken crumpled at that – sagged anyway – he was no match for Alec and me. He nodded his head wearily and went on his way.
‘Well,’ I said when he was gone. ‘He is the worst and yet the most dedicated liar I have ever seen. One almost wants to laugh. Does he think we can’t see the joins, between one posture and the next? Are we supposed to forget the last mood when he clicks his fingers and moves on to the next one? Grieving father, man of the world, fierce protecting husband, loyal son…’
‘You can’t see whatever it is that Hilda Hepburn sees in him then?’
‘Not a bit,’ I said. ‘She called him as tricky as a bag of monkeys. She finds it entertaining but it makes me sick.’
‘I especially didn’t swallow the act of protective husband,’ said Alec. ‘Well done, Dandy, spotting the flaw. You’re right of course. He would have said “her child” or “her own child”. It was Hilda who was making him so fierce, not his poor wife.’
‘And speaking of his poor wife,’ I said, ‘shall I ring for Trusslove to fetch her? I have to know why she banned the marriage. I’ll never sleep again otherwise. And, besides, I’d like to ask her about what happened up on that landing. She was right there. If there’s any chance a murderer was there too, surely she’d know.’
The butler’s good, kind face clouded a little at our request but he went just the same.
‘This is quite a place,’ Alec said, looking around himself as we waited.
‘The house, you mean? Or the library?’
‘Well, both,’ Alec said, ‘but especially the library. If we can call it that. Where are the books?’
‘In those glass cases,’ I said. ‘All five hundred years old and worth a fortune. They must keep the almanacs and three-volume novels elsewhere.’
The door opened and Abigail Aitken came in.
‘Again?’ she said. ‘More questions? I’ve told you everything I know.’
Alec stood and guided her to a chair. Dear man, he could not help it; she looked even more frail today and she looked, too, as unkempt as Bella, her great mane of hair dull and greasy at the roots and the shawl which once more she hugged about herself giving off the kind of stale, sour odour I had only ever smelled in two-room cottages before.
‘My dear Mrs Aitken,’ I said to her, ‘I am more sorry than I can tell you, but I have no choice but to come again. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t try to get to the bottom of what happened here.’
There was just one quick glint in her eyes then.
‘You would be surprised, Mrs Gilver,’ she said. ‘You would be very surprised to find how able we are to live with ourselves. What choice do we have after all? Our eyes close at night and open the next day and we are still here. We breathe in and out and we drink water and eat food and our eyes blink and we shiver in the cold and squint in the sun and go on and on and on.’ Her head had fallen as she spoke but now she looked up at me again. ‘And after an eternity, we add up the days and it has been ten. Ten days since she died. Fifteen since I saw her alive. And we go on some more.’
I looked over at Alec. Despite everything I had said, I was willing to leave this house and this case and let this poor woman grieve in peace, if he gave me the slightest sign. He stared ahead stonily.
‘I made a mistake, you see,’ Abigail Aitken went on. ‘I thought if I could just get through the funeral, everything would be better then. If I could make it through until after the funeral and come home… you won’t believe what I thought if I could make it through the funeral and come home.’
‘You thought she’d come back again,’ Alec said.
‘Yes!’ said Abigail and it was almost a shout, she was so delighted that he had understood her. ‘How did you know? Oh! I’m sorry. Who have you lost? That you should know.’
‘My brother,’ Alec said. ‘It was his memorial, for me. If I got the memorial finished and installed in our little chapel at home, he’d come to see it and complain about the wording probably.’
‘Your brother,’ Abigail said. ‘Jack’s brothers died too, you know. But he doesn’t understand how I feel.’
I tried to stop shock showing on my face. And not only his brothers, I thought. His daughter too. Did his wife not see what a monster she made him sound? In case it should occur to her and pain her, I hurried to fill the silence in the room.
‘Mrs Aitken,’ I said, ‘I know the police have closed the case, but I also know that they have some misgivings. I would rather not go to them if I can avoid doing so. I would rather spare you all the pain.’
‘I think I must be immune to further pain, Mrs Gilver,’ said Abigail, ‘but if you could spare us disgrace – my mother and Bella too who have done nothing to merit it – I would be thankful. I don’t care what happens to me. Ask away.’
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘First, if you can bear it, I’d like to ask about what happened up on the attic landing when Mirren died.’
Abigail nodded, but drew her shawl a little tighter around her.
‘There would be no point in my confessing again,’ she said. ‘It didn’t work the first time.’
‘Can you tell me why you went up there?’ I said.
‘The police asked me that,’ Abigail said. ‘I was downstairs with Jack and Mother – but of course you were there, weren’t you? – and then Jack went away – I don’t know why.’
‘He went to check that the doors were closed,’ I said. ‘Your mother was worried about gatecrashers.’
‘All I knew was that he was gone and I thought I might fall down. I felt faint and there were so many people all watching. I wanted to hide. I just wanted to curl up somewhere until it was over. I didn’t want to be there at all, really. But then I remembered Mirren’s special little place, up in the attics – like a little play house really except that it was a proper room. She had begged all sorts of things out of her granny to furnish it and so I went there. Or that’s where I was going. To curl up and put my hands over my head and feel close to her.’