The room is vast, the carpet swirling away in a luxury of Persian roses, pale with antiquity. Heavy drapes and large lamps. A desk the size of a dining table. Patty is opening a highly polished rosewood cupboard to reveal a deep-set drinks cabinet, cut glasses, decanter and all.
‘Goodness,’ says Miriam. ‘Didn’t think they still made those.’ For comforting the bereft, she guesses, or firing people. Or those long nights drawing up draconian immigration policy.
‘They don’t,’ says Patty. ‘This one’s 1930s. Picked it up at Bonhams. I went with Sam – she’s got lots more time since she left Smythson.’
Miriam hasn’t the energy to deliver what Patty needs. She requires admiration. Ian and Miriam have always been quick to give it but now, standing beside Patty at the stupid Nazi-Reich drinks cabinet while Ian and Rog burble to each other on the other side of the room, and everything stripped away, she and Ian back to the bone, while Rog and Patty are still so pleased with themselves, she wonders what the basis is for any sort of friendship.
‘I just don’t think they know what they’re doing,’ Ian is saying, as Patty hands Miriam a bitter lemon in a heavy, textured glass. (Not tea, thank God.) She takes Ian a tumbler of whiskey, which is not at all like him, but perhaps more so, recently. ‘Saying all that stuff on Crimewatch, it just clouds the investigation.’
Rog has retreated behind his desk for protection. ‘I know you’re worried sick, and I can see the telly thing would have been distressing, but best thing you can do is let the police do their job.’
‘But there’s so much confusion, you see, in the investigation. They keep looking for connections where there aren’t any. One minute they say it’s this criminal, Tony Wright; then it’s her complex love life; next it’s this Dent boy. The Edith they describe, it doesn’t bear any relation …’
Ian’s tone has become needy and simultaneously Roger’s eyes have grown cold. The trace of the bully in Roger, which is the real seat of his power – a gaze which can flash like steel, the unapologetic way in which he takes up all the air space. Miriam wonders what sort of bully – what sort of punishment he employs, these things rarely being notional, not if they’re to have any heft. Perhaps the threat, simply, of being cast out from the circle of influence. The rope gets longer.
‘We thought you might be able to get the inside track,’ Ian is saying, while looking to Miriam for support.
‘I’m sure you understand, I can’t meddle in police work. Individual cases – how would it look …’ Roger says.
‘Oh, come off it,’ Ian says. ‘I bet you meddle all the time. I’m sure you’re right in there when the Daily Mail says you’re not taking a hard enough line.’
‘Ian,’ Miriam says soothingly. ‘All we want,’ she begins, but wonders what it is they want, really. Rog and Patty can’t find Edith for them, which is the only thing that matters. Perhaps they want what anyone wants from the powerful – protection. They want Roger to oil the processes, as they would be oiled for him; to protect them from shoddiness. ‘All we want,’ she tries again but her tears stop her, and in some way save them all. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ Miriam snivels as Patty hugs her. ‘Can we talk about something else, please? What’s your news? How is Calista?’
Manon
‘Quiet everyone, please,’ says Harriet, and the department falls to a hush. ‘As you know, Tony Wright was arrested last night at 5 p.m., he’s spent the night in custody, so hopefully he’ll be nice and chatty this morning. His flat is now a crime scene. SOCO is still in there looking for anything that could link Wright to either Edith or Taylor Dent. We have,’ she looks at her watch, ‘six hours remaining in which to charge him with something, otherwise he walks. His brief is going to say the CCTV footage is too grainy for a firm ID and that his alibi for the weekend Edith disappeared still holds tight.’
‘Which is true,’ says Manon.
‘Which is true,’ repeats Harriet, nodding. ‘So why was Edith calling Tony Wright the week before she disappeared? Twice – once on the Monday, again on the Friday.’
‘You don’t think she was having an affair with him, do you?’ says Davy.
‘You’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to have an affair with Tony Wright,’ says Kim.
‘Maybe,’ says Colin thoughtfully, as if swilling an exquisite red around his palate, ‘she’s had enough of all the posh blokes and fancies a bit of rough.’
‘Yeah, ’cos it’s a tough one, isn’t it?’ says Kim, holding both hands in the balance. ‘On the one hand you’ve got devastatingly handsome Cambridge graduate Will Carter; and on the other you’ve got sleazebag burglar Tony Wright. Who to choose?’
‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ says Harriet.
‘She might find rough men exciting,’ ventures Colin.