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‘Yes?’ Prue said.
She’d aged. That was the first thing Jem thought. She’d aged so much that he wasn’t sure he would have recognised her. Her hair was greyed and pulled back tight; her faded dress was plain and shapeless to the point of aggression. Jem didn’t know about women’s fashions, but he knew a don’t-look-at-me appearance when he saw one.
This wasn’t Prue, the laughing young woman out to conquer Oxford. This wasn’t what should have happened.
‘Yes?’ she said again, and then her face changed. She stared at Jem, eyes narrowing to a squint in a painfully familiar way, and he managed a smile.
‘Hello, Prue. It’s me.’
‘Jem.’
‘May I come in?’
EIGHT
Prue’s cottage was no better tended inside than out. It wasn’t cluttered, but that seemed to be more because it didn’t contain much than because of tidiness. There was a chair by the fireplace in the little parlour, and another by the window, its back turned. There was nothing on the mantelpiece. The dresser showed the bare minimum of crockery: two plates, two side plates, two bowls, two cups. There were four framed photographs on a little table, and nothing else.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Jem said stiffly. The clenched bare misery of Prue’s living space was appalling. Was this what people saw when they looked at him? ‘Could we sit down? Please?’
‘Tea?’ she said, as if the word was forced from her by propriety.
‘Please.’
She nodded, didn’t move for a second longer, still studying his face, then turned and walked out.
Jem went over to the table to look at the photographs. There were four cabinet frames, and each one showed a child. The first image showed Prue, looking solemn as everyone did in posed pictures, with a child of toddling age on her lap. The next three showed a stubby-legged child growing into a lanky grinning urchin. There was no image of the deceased MrWarren or of a wedding day, just four pictures of a boy. Was Prue an aunt? A mother? This house didn’t feel as though it held a child.
Jem contemplated the images a little longer, then sat, feeling rather chilled by the chair’s cold wood through his trousers. Prue came in with the tea tray. They went through the ritual of how Jem took it, and finally Prue sat, stiff-backed, and said, ‘So. Did you just drop by for a chat?’
‘No. I wish I had. I should have, a long time ago. Are you all right?’
Prudence looked around the cold little room, one long sweeping gaze, and back at him.
‘No,’ Jem said. ‘Nor am I. I never sat Finals, I was unwell. They called it a breakdown of the nerves.’
Prue’s lips tightened. ‘Are you here for sympathy?’
He hadn’t thought of sympathy. Hehadthought empathy, that she was the one of them who might understand.
‘I’m here because someone sent my superior at work an anonymous letter accusing me of Toby’s murder and I lost my position as a result. I’ve asked around, and Hugo and Aaron had them too. Identical wording. Hugo’s was sent to his fiancée and Aaron’s to his partners in his practice.’
Prue opened her mouth slightly, as if she were about to speak, then snapped it shut.
‘Three of us have had the same letter, aimed to stir up trouble. And I’m cursed if this will be the rest of my life. Going through all the work of finding employment and starting in a new position and waiting for the next person to find out and writeMurdereracross my blotter again. I’ve had enough.’
‘So you want to know who wrote the letters? That’s why you’re here?’
‘I don’t care who wrote the letters. Perfectly respectable men and women, I expect, hiding the fact that their minds are a slurry of malice by vomiting it onto strangers. Did you get one?’
‘To the school.Prudence Warren is a murderer. She killed Toby Feynsham. Ask her why.’
‘Prudence Warren,’ Jem repeated. ‘So the writer found out your married name.’
Prue blinked. ‘Well, yes. I suppose they must have. What about the others? Ella?’
‘I haven’t seen her yet. She’s difficult to get hold of.’
