She actually jumped at the sound of my voice, whirling around with one hand to her throat, her eyes wide. Her gaze tracked over my shoulder to where Morgan Norris stood.
‘Calm down, Eleanor. It’s just a routine visit. She’s not even here to see you.’ There was an undercurrent of irritation in his voice. Something about Eleanor invited it: the pink-rimmed eyes, the small voice, the ostentatious meekness.
‘You gave me a fright. I didn’t hear two sets of footsteps, that’s all.’ She tried to smile. ‘Everyone creeps around here in their socks. I need to get hobnailed boots for them for Christmas so I can keep track of them.’
‘I came to see Chloe,’ I said. ‘But Morgan said you wanted to speak with me first.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ A look passed between them that I couldn’t read. Norris went over and started leafing through the newspaper.
‘I wanted to say that Chloe is welcome to stay here as long as she likes,’ Eleanor said. ‘I – I hadn’t thought about it last night. I should have said it from the start. Of course she can rely on us.’
‘That’s a very generous offer,’ I said slowly, choosing my words with care. ‘It’s quite difficult to accommodate someone in your home, especially when you don’t know how long they might stay with you.’
Norris laughed. ‘Eleanor knows that. She’s already got me.’
‘But you’re family.’ I bit my lip. ‘Look, the family liaison officer can give you more information—’
‘Her? I sent her home,’ Eleanor snapped. ‘She was a very stupid, offensive woman and all she did was make cups of tea in my kitchen.’
‘Offensive?’ I said, puzzled.
‘She didn’t quite understand about Eleanor and Oliver’s commitment to their church,’ Morgan Norris said. ‘She called them God-botherers.’
‘Oh. Well.’
‘Because Oliver invited her to join us in prayer,’ Eleanor said. ‘She obviously has no idea how much God could help her in her work.’
‘It’s a difficult job,’ I said diplomatically, thinking that Eleanor Norris was a nightmare and the FLO had probably skipped out of the house when she got her marching orders. ‘If she was here, she would tell you what I’m about to tell you. It’s natural to want to make everything right again in the aftermath of a crime. It’s easy to make commitments that you could find yourself regretting. And Chloe is an adult.’
‘How ridiculous. She couldn’t survive on her own with her limitations.’
‘Maybe not. There are other options, though. After all, she’s not an orphan. Her father—’
‘She can’t go and live with him.’ Morgan Norris looked up from the paper again. ‘It’s out of the question.’
‘Why not?’
‘She’s terrified of him.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘She said it herself. Last night.’ Eleanor folded her arms. ‘I asked her if she wanted to see him and she was beside herself. She begged me not to send her away. Of course I said she could stay here until she wanted to leave.’
‘Did she say why she was scared?’
‘No.’ Eleanor turned to her brother-in-law. ‘She didn’t, did she?’
‘She said she didn’t want to go to his house again,’ Norris said. ‘She wouldn’t say why.’
‘His house,’ I repeated. ‘So it’s not that she doesn’t want to see him.’
‘I can only tell you what she said. You’ll have to ask her what she meant.’
‘I just wanted to reassure her.’ Eleanor was back on the verge of tears. She had obviously been chewing over what I’d said to her, preparing to disagree with me. I had the feeling she was the kind of person who would keep returning to an argument until she felt she’d won. There was a word for them.
Exhausting, that was it.
‘I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing. And anyway, it’s not wrong to say she can stay as long as she likes. I really think she should. I prayed about it. I asked for God’s guidance.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘But you probably think that’s strange.’
‘Not at all.’ I meant it. My mother had garlanded my childhood with novenas and holy days and special intentions, with holy water and decades of the rosary and prayer cards for specific pious purposes. I was very familiar with the concept of praying for guidance. And it reminded me of something that had caught my attention the previous day. ‘Your husband mentioned that he’d invited Kate Emery to your church. Did she ever come?’
I thought for a moment that Eleanor was going to faint. Her face went white, her lips bloodless. She put out a hand to the back of the chair beside her. ‘He did what?’
‘He said he invited her to your church,’ I repeated, but diffidently.
‘There’s no way he would have done that. He’d have told me if he had.’
‘That’s part of the deal, isn’t it, Eleanor? You invite poor sinners to join you in Christ.’ Morgan reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’
She pulled herself together with a visible effort. ‘Even if he had, she certainly wouldn’t have come. She had no interest in anything spiritual. Quite the opposite.’
‘She did come.’ Morgan looked uneasy. ‘I think it was when you and Bethany were away with your mum. A couple of months ago.’
‘What? Why didn’t Oliver tell me?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘And how do you know about it? You weren’t there, were you? You’ve never gone to a service.’
‘She came over here before they left. Oliver drove her.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense. She was a sceptical person. She would only have come to mock us.’
‘Well, she never went back, did she?’ Morgan turned a page in the newspaper. ‘So it can’t be that much of a big deal.’
I was going to have to talk to Oliver Norris again, and the white-haired preacher. I suppressed a tiny sigh at the thought. ‘Right. Was that everything?’
‘The car.’ Morgan spoke without looking up. ‘Why did you want to examine it?’
‘Routine enquiries.’
He glanced at me. ‘So you’ve been examining all the cars on the road, have you?’
‘Not all.’
‘Why Oliver’s?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Did you find anything?’ Eleanor was trembling, I noticed, her knuckles white as she dug her fingers into the chair back.
‘I can’t tell you that either.’
‘If they’d found anything, they’d have taken the car away,’ Morgan said, losing interest. ‘There was nothing to find.’
He was right about that. The car had been immaculate, the boot recently vacuumed. The material that lined it was still slightly damp, according to the SOCO who had gone over it for me.
‘Who cleaned it out?’ I asked.