There were no teacups by the basin either. No teapot waiting to be washed. The kettle was cold. Constance filled it from the tap and set it on the stove. She could hear Juliet’s voice from the sitting room, with occasional interpolations from Solomon.
Impossible to know how much she’d had to drink. She had always been adept at hiding her drunkenness from Constance. Until she reached the comatose state, of course. Until then, the only clues were generally the care with which she enunciated. Oddly, although Constance hadn’t guessed it at the time, this was when she betrayed her original accent. Drunk as a wheelbarrow, one could only control so many things at once.
While Constance gathered the necessary accoutrements onto the tray, and spooned tea from the old caddy into the pot, she calmed herself and began to think.
“Bless you, Connie,” Juliet said comfortably as Constance brought the tea tray into the sitting room. “Just what I need, a good cup of tea.”
Constance served her first, which was only polite. “What did Kellar want?” she asked casually.
Her mother didn’t pause as she reached for her teacup, but the faint twitch of her lip acknowledged the hit and told Constance she was ready for the question. “Oh, just to talk over old times.”
“What did you discuss?”
Juliet grimaced before taking a sip of tea. “Nothing. After thirty years with our lives gone in such different directions, there was very little to say.”
So she’d sent him away with a flea in his ear—if she’d let him in atall. “Did he mind?”
“Don’t see how he could have,” Juliet said carelessly. “It’s obvious I’m not the same girl he knew decades ago. I expect it was a relief to him. His responsibilities are at an end.”
“Then heisa man who takes his responsibilities seriously?” Solomon asked.
Juliet shrugged. “He used to.”
“Did he tell you,” Constance asked, “that he has applied for a position in London?”
Only the faintest flicker of her mother’s eyelid betrayed her surprise. If Constance hadn’t been watching her so closely, she would have missed it.
“No,” Juliet said without apparent interest. “He didn’t stay long.”
“He brought this case to us,” Constance said. “Caterina di Ripoli’s death. And we don’t know why, because now we consider him one of our three suspects. Is he capable of killing?”
“Most people are, for the right reasons.”
“Even if the victim was a woman?” Solomon asked.
Juliet smiled at him affectionately. “A life is a life.”
“The thing is,” Constance said, “until we know he didn’t do this, you mustn’t endanger yourself with him.”
“Don’t be daft, Connie. He’s got no reason to kill me.”
*
“He does,” Constancesaid half an hour later as the carriage finally took them toward home. “Kellar does have a reason to be rid of her.”
Solomon understood her immediately. “A man stepping into a prominent role in a government office does not need embarrassments from his past getting in the way. It’s a cold reason to kill.”
“We’ve been thinking of this as a crime of passion, because of the roses, but when you think about it, if Caterina’s death really wasmurder, then it was very well calculated. There is no actual evidence to show that she was murdered, let alone who killed her. I think that points to Kellar. But even if it doesn’t, I think he went to see Juliet to make sure she wouldn’t blab to the world that she—the eccentric shopkeeper, one-time fence and whore—was once almost engaged to the great Sebastian Kellar.”
Solomon was frowning. “And she reassured him?”
“If he’s prepared to take the chance.”
“He took an interest in us,” Solomon said slowly, “made a mighty effort and risked his own neck to try to save your life, because you are Juliet’s daughter.”
“Maybe. But I can’t forgive him.”
“For what?”
