‘You said you were here on holiday, Miss Weston, is that right? In that case, I’ll need a note of your permanent address. Oh, and a phone number.’
Antonia gripped the phone tightly, and said, ‘I haven’t got a permanent address–I’ve been away for a long time.’ But this sounded so absurd and so redolent of nineteenth-century lunatics locked away for years and the truth covered up with euphemisms, that she gave the sergeant the hospital address, and said he should record it as care of Jonathan Saxon, head of psychiatry.
‘Psychiatry?’ said the voice at the other end with a suspicious edge, and at the same time Antonia was aware of a sudden stillness from the adjoining room.
‘My boss,’ she said, into the phone, and this time there was an edge of authority in her voice she had not known she could still summon. Either this or Oliver Remus’s brandy gave her sufficient confidence to add, ‘Thank you, Sergeant Blackburn. I’ll see you at Charity Cottage in half an hour,’ and to hang up before any more difficult questions could be asked.
As they walked back across the park, Professor Remus had the air of someone who wanted to get a necessary task over so that he could get back to more important things. Antonia found this depressing and annoying in equal portions. But as they turned into the walkway between the old yew hedges, he suddenly said, ‘You did tell the police that someone had put a hangman’s rope in the kitchen, didn’t you? I did hear that right?’
‘Yes.’
He half turned his head to look at her. ‘How extraordinary.’
‘That’s one word for it.’
‘The front door’s open,’ he said, as they rounded the curve in the path and the cottage came into view. ‘Did you leave it like that?’
‘Yes. I ran out of the place as soon as I saw the–the rope. I wasn’t thinking about locking up, and anyhow the intruder had already got in so it didn’t seem to matter about keys and locks and things.’
‘I wasn’t criticizing. That looks like the police driving up now. We’d better wait here and let them go in ahead of us, I should think.’
Sergeant Blackburn was very much like his voice: large and a bit ponderous. He introduced a young PC who was with him, and said this sounded like a strange business so they would go inside on their own first, just to see what was what.
‘We’ll wait here,’ said Oliver. ‘All right, Miss Weston?’
‘Never better.’
The police search took quite a long time. Antonia sat down on the little low wall that surrounded part of the cottage’s gardens, and tried not to shiver too noticeably. Lights were switched on inside the cottage, and there were sounds of doors being noisily opened, and of the two policemen calling to one another. When they eventually came out, Antonia’s heart skipped a few beats, but she said, ‘Well?’
‘You did say the rope was in the kitchen, Miss Weston?’
‘Yes. You can’t miss it. It was hanging down from the ceiling,’ said Antonia. ‘You’d walk smack into it if you didn’t know it was there.’
Sergeant Blackburn exchanged a glance with his constable, and looked at Oliver Remus. ‘There’s nothing there,’ he said. ‘The kitchen’s perfectly normal–no rope, no signs of one anywhere.’
The constable added, ‘And there are no signs of any break in.’ He glanced at the sergeant, who studied Antonia for a moment and then said, ‘Can you think why anyone would put a hangman’s noose in your kitchen, Miss Weston?’
After they had all left, Antonia was angrily aware of her isolation.