Giotto's Hand

So she and Argyll set off down the small garden, leaving Flavia to examine Forster’s house professionally. Argyll would have hung around, but she was quite capable of finding out everything she needed on her own and, at times like that when she was concentrating, he knew that she was better left in peace.

“I like Flavia,” Mary said eventually in a definite tone of voice. “Hang on to her.”

“I’m going to. Where are we going, by the way?” he asked as they crossed through what seemed to be an old hedge.

“We’re back in the grounds of Weller. That path over there leads back round to the front of the house. It gets a bit boggy at times. This path goes through that little copse. There’s not much in it. Someone once had an idea about breeding pheasants, but got bored with it. You can still see some wandering around at times. They have a nice life. Nobody’s bothered them for years. It’s quite pretty.”

“Let’s go down there, then. Tell me, why don’t you just sell Weller and be shot of it? There must be something left over, mustn’t there? Even after taxes?”

“After taxes, yes. But after taxes and paying off debts, no. Basically, we’re chugging along courtesy of the bank manager. Uncle Godfrey refused to accept reality and kept on raising loans secured on what he persuaded bankers were his expectations.”

“What expectations?”

“That he would win his fight for compensation for the airbase, which was commandeered during the war. A complete waste of time, in my opinion. Or at least it was. Now they’re going, there’s a possibility I might get it back.”

“But not for several years, surely?”

“No. Frankly, I doubt if it will ever happen, although don’t say I said so. The important thing is to persuade the banks, so I can borrow money on it.”

“Like Uncle Godfrey?”

“A bit. I suppose you think it’s grossly irresponsible, borrowing money I know I will never pay back. But what the hell? What are banks for?”

They were crossing a small clearing, only a dozen or so yards wide, and made a detour to avoid a volcano-shaped pile of garden rubbish that had been stacked up for burning. It still smelt slightly, the charred aroma of burnt material that has been wettened overnight when the rain started coming down again. On the other side, the source of the smell came into view, and Argyll stopped dead in his tracks. Then he went and peered closely at the large pile. An old manila file was only half-burnt, and it was labelled ‘correspondence 1982.’ Another bit of half-consumed paper had a letterhead from Bond Street. A third was the remains of some bill or other.

The pair of them looked at it for a while, then Jonathan said: “Seems to solve the problem of the empty filing cabinet, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said eventually, sticking her hands in her pockets. “It does, doesn’t it?”

Now Argyll bent down, stuck his face close to the debris and sniffed. “A whiff of petrol. Or paraffin,” he observed. “What was the weather like here yesterday?”

“Rained in the morning, stopped in the afternoon, started again in the evening and kept going.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, somebody must have worked very hard on this. Carrying all those files out of the house, bringing them all the way over here, setting light to them, watching them burn, then doing their best to scatter the debris. They must have been busy for quite a time. I wonder why?”

“Is that a rhetorical question, or do you think you know?”

“It destroys a lot of possible evidence about Forster, doesn’t it? Come on. We’ll have to walk back and find Inspector Wilson.”

Flavia, meanwhile, was having a cup of coffee and a little chat with Jessica Forster, whom she’d encountered just as she was beginning her cursory look around the site where the murdered man had been found. She was standing, hands in pocket, lost in thought, at the foot of the stairs, squinting up to get an idea of the man’s descent, when there came a cough, half apologetic, half indignant, from behind her.

She turned round to greet the cougher, and apologize for coming in without knocking: in fact, she had entirely forgotten that Forster’s widow was there. It was something, she decided later, that people did with Jessica Forster. The adjective mousy arose, quite unbidden, in her mind and despite all efforts to achieve a more balanced, subtle character analysis, it stayed there throughout, squeaking at her insistently.

Mrs. Forster was over ten years younger than her husband, she guessed, and exuded none of the self-confidence and arrogance that the photographs of the dead man possessed. She had the pressed lips and tight jaw of suffering righteousness, of a martyr to the cause of doing things properly. She was also extremely nervous and manifestly in considerable distress, although this was, she decided charitably, more than reasonable in the circumstances. Either way, Flavia found her a difficult person to talk to, and discovered that the nervousness and twitchiness was mildly contagious.