‘The papers are on to it. That was the Telegraph. A reporter.’
‘What?’ She’d stared. With everything else that was going on, the police, she’d forgotten about the media. But of course, this was the Glass family. ‘What did they want?’ she said. ‘What did they ask you?’
‘He wanted to know about Michael’s connection to Marianne. He used the word relationship but I don’t know if he meant . . .’ Adam had shaken his head. ‘It’s too much. Do we have to go through all this again? Now – so soon? I don’t know if Mum’s going to be able to handle it – or Fint.’ He looked at her. ‘You saw all that at the funeral, with the photographer?’
She remembered accosting the man in his car outside the house afterwards, trying to buy the pictures. She’d told him he was a carrion crow.
‘I’m sorry,’ Adam told the woman now. ‘I know he’s died, very sadly, but I’m afraid that’s all I do know. You should talk to the police, I . . .’
‘Are you concerned there’s a link between his death and your sister’s?’
From her position behind him, Rowan saw Adam stiffen. ‘As I said, you should . . .’
‘I’ve seen photos of the funeral so I know they knew each other. There’s got to be a connection, hasn’t there? The two of them artists, both here – in Oxford, I mean. And dying so close together – a matter of weeks, isn’t it?’
‘Please,’ said Adam, and now Rowan could hear how much it was costing him to keep his cool. ‘I know this is your job but Marianne was my sister. We don’t know anything about Cory’s death at all. Nothing. So please, just . . . let us do our grieving in peace.’
Undeterred, the woman opened her mouth again. ‘Can you tell me anything about Cory as a person, then? He was controversial, wasn’t he – Hanna Ferrara, The Woman Who Has Everything?’
‘If you want career information, you should talk to his gallerist.’ Adam paused momentarily. ‘His American gallerist, I mean. Saul Hander.’
Calmly but firmly, he shut the door on her.
‘If anything happens, Ro, ring me straight away.’
‘I will.’ She breathed in his woody scent then let him go. ‘Adam, will you tell your mum how sorry I am? That I’m thinking about her and sending my love?’
‘Are you really going to try to work?’
‘I don’t know. No,’ she admitted, ‘probably not. I was, but now . . .’ She glanced in the direction of the front door. They’d waited ten minutes in the hope that she’d go, but just now, looking out of the window in Seb and Jacqueline’s bedroom, they’d seen Georgina Parry on her mobile in a black hatchback parked across the street.
‘The idea of just sitting here and her coming to the door again. Or the phone ringing. If you think it’s okay – to leave the house unattended, I mean – I could go for a walk or have some coffee, wander around and try to distract myself. Theo’s got my number so if anything comes up, I can come back.’
‘Are you ready to go now?’ he asked.
‘Except for shoes and my purse.’
‘Come with me, then – I’ll drop you somewhere.’ He glanced towards the door. ‘You don’t need to run that gauntlet on your own.’
Thirty-eight
She asked him to drop her on Parks Road and until half-past four, when it closed, she drifted among the amulets and instruments, pots and African masks in the Pitt Rivers Museum. Coming into the vaulted central atrium, she thought, was like stepping inside a vast, eclectic Victorian intelligence, wonderful, but the museum was always marred for her by memories of her father.
One wet afternoon when she was eight or nine, he’d been moved by some unexplained impulse to bring her here. She’d been entranced – by the weirdness then, most likely: she remembered standing for a long time in front of the shrunken heads, fascinated and repulsed – and for years thereafter, if there were even a hint of rain in the forecast and thus a chance they would have to spend the afternoon in the house together, he’d whisked her straight here and encouraged her to get lost among the display cabinets.