‘Me,’ he says. ‘I give her a MoneyGram transfer via the Post Office every month – ￡1,500 on the first. She pays the rent on the cottage in cash to the landlord – that’s ￡750, I think. He lives next door. I pay the utilities directly from London. The rest she lives off.’
‘So there would’ve been quite a lot of cash in the house,’ says Harriet. ‘She would have been seen collecting wads of it at the Post Office …’
‘Look, I feel it’s risky,’ says Sir Ian. ‘And I’ve argued with her about it. I’ve said I’d rather she has a bank account into which I can transfer the funds. But she just won’t have it. She says someone has to break with the status quo. I think she’d prefer not to receive any money from me, to do everything her own way, on her own terms. Twenty-four-year-olds are like that. So I don’t argue with her because I want her to have my help.’
‘Also,’ says Lady Hind, ‘and we discussed this, oh God, endlessly, because it worried us, but we reason that ￡750 goes more-or-less straight to the landlord, so it’s not as if it’s all under the bed.’
‘You get to a point,’ Sir Ian adds, and it’s as if he and his wife’s sentences are a continuation, ‘where you don’t want to fall out with your children because you don’t want to lose them. The balance of power shifts, you see. I want her to have my money and these are the terms on which she’ll have it.’
‘How many people know about this cash arrangement?’
‘Well, Will, of course. We have sort of been supporting Will by default because he lives in the house and we pay for the house,’ says Lady Hind. ‘As to others, Edith doesn’t keep quiet about her views. She’s quite vocal.’
‘So this weekend,’ Harriet says, ‘there should have been how much in the cottage, at a guess?’
Sir Ian glances at his phone. ‘It’s the nineteenth, so she’s halfway through the month,’ he says. ‘Christmas is a bit more expensive, so I’d imagine no more than ￡300. Surely not enough for someone to …’
‘You’d be surprised,’ says Harriet. ‘Why not pay her rent directly? Why not transfer that, like the utilities?’
‘The landlord gives her a slight reduction in return for cash-in-hand. I assume he’s fiddling his taxes somewhat.’
‘Fifteen hundred pounds is a generous allowance,’ says Manon. ‘Is she extravagant?’
‘Quite the opposite. Edith believes in treading lightly on the earth.’
‘But she has a car.’
‘An electric car,’ says Lady Hind. She swallows, and Manon sees she’s keeping down a swell of desperation. ‘A very old electric car. A G-Wiz. It used to be my run-around. Edith needed it when she moved to Huntingdon – to get to lectures and supervisions at Corpus and to Deeping, which is only half an hour from here.’
‘We’ll need to take a closer look at Deeping, I hope you don’t mind – get our forensic teams out there,’ says Harriet.
‘It’s almost impossible to get to without a car. Middle of the Fens, about three acres,’ says Sir Ian. ‘Quite a rough place, really. Edith loves it there but, like I say, without the G-Wiz …’
‘She might have gone with someone else,’ says Harriet.
He nods. ‘Would you like my keys?’
‘No, it’s all right, I’ve got Edith’s set. Can I ask, is there any way she could gain access without her keys? A spare set at the property, perhaps?’
‘Yes, in the porch, high up. If you feel along the architrave, there’s a key resting there for emergencies,’ says Sir Ian. ‘The house is in the middle of nowhere. Hardly anyone even knows it’s there, so we’re quite lax on security.’
Harriet is writing in her notebook. She looks up and says, ‘Now, we just need to get an account of your movements over the weekend so we can eliminate you both from the enquiry.’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Lady Hind. ‘We were at the theatre on Saturday night with friends. King Lear at the Almeida. After the theatre, we went for supper at Le Palmier – six of us. We left there about midnight. Yesterday, we were at home mostly with the fire on – it was so cold. Ian went to the office briefly in the morning, didn’t you? I made a monkfish stew for lunch. In the afternoon, we pottered about at home, reading, I watched bits of a film – one of those World War Two black and white ones. Ian was in and out of his study. In the evening, I took a delivery from my florist – she was getting all her Christmas orders out, hence why she was delivering so late on a Sunday. Then – this was about nine – Will rang, worried sick about Edith.’
‘And your friends at the theatre,’ Harriet says. ‘Could we have a list?’
‘Rog and Patty,’ says Sir Ian, looking at Harriet’s notebook. ‘That’s Roger Galloway and his wife Patricia. I’m sure their security detail will confirm everything for you.’
Manon, Davy, and Harriet shoot a glance at each other and Harriet says, ‘A word outside, you two.’