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Kitteridge’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why not simply kill him? It seems a long way round about it.’ Then suddenly he shook his head, as if he understood. ‘Disgrace him, then ruin him. Probably effective. But then who did kill Mrs Graves?’
‘That’s the difficulty,’ Daniel agreed.
‘Do Special Branch go in for that sort of thing? Assassinations?’ Kitteridge asked. ‘It’s a bit steep! Killing poor Mrs Graves. It’s not her fault. It would be plain murder. I don’t like the sound of that at all.’
‘The way he paints Special Branch, or at the least the heads of it, that would be the least of their crimes,’ Daniel said bitterly.
‘What are you going to do?’ There was a surprising gentleness in Kitteridge’s voice, as if he understood the complexity and the pain of family loyalty, rivalry, complicated love, and the need for ties at the same time as freedom.
Daniel hesitated before he answered. ‘I’m going to try to find out who did kill Ebony Graves. It still could have been Graves himself. We know no one broke in, and I can’t imagine any of the staff doing it. None of them would have the strength, except the butler. If he did, he must have had a hell of a reason!’
‘It must have been someone already in the house,’ Kitteridge said. ‘We’ve been through this. If Graves had let someone in, he’d have said so by now.’
‘Or she let them in herself?’
‘A lover? They couldn’t find any trace of one.’
‘So, he was clever, and careful.’
‘Do you believe that?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. But we have still got seventeen more days to find out.’
‘Less.’ Kitteridge climbed to his feet. ‘We can’t lodge an appeal on the last day. Not that we’ve got anything to appeal about. I wish I wanted to save him.’ His mouth twisted with an expression of complicated regret. ‘What you just told me makes me want to see him hang. I don’t like being made to question my government. There’s so much else in the world that’s changing, or questioning everything. I want to have somebody to believe in.’
Daniel watched him retreat, and was aware with a sudden sense of pity that Kitteridge had not said he wanted to believe in his own family. But Daniel did, profoundly.
Sometime later, Daniel looked up from his note-making to see Impney standing in front of him. ‘Yes?’
‘Miss fford Croft is here to see you, sir. I’ve asked her to wait in Mr fford Croft’s rooms, since he is not in at the moment. You will not be disturbed.’
Daniel rose to his feet, not feeling ready for this at all. ‘Thank you, Impney.’
He knocked briefly on fford Croft’s door, and as soon as he heard an answer he went in. He did not know what he expected, but it was not the woman who stood in the centre of the floor. Miriam was not tall, but she was slender, which gave the impression of more height than she had. Daniel had only ever known fford Croft with white hair, so he had no idea what colour it had been in his youth. Hers was bright auburn; one might say less politely, red. She had the fair blemishless skin that sometimes goes with that shade, and her eyes were unmistakably greenish-blue. She was not beautiful, which was a surprise, given her colouring. Her face was too strong, her nose too bold. But she was entirely unforgettable. On this occasion, she wore a business-like full-length skirt; there was no concession to fashion in it. Her jacket was tailored, and her blouse crisp white, but unadorned by lace or frills.
‘You’re Daniel Pitt?’ she asked, as if surprised by his appearance. Perhaps she had expected someone older, like Kitteridge, perhaps, who was thirty-four, nearer to her own age, which looked to be just under forty.
‘Yes. How do you do, Miss fford Croft?’ he replied a little stiffly. This woman was a doctor and a chemist. Why, for heaven’s sake?
‘Please sit down, Mr Pitt,’ she directed. ‘Tell me everything you know about the case about which you want advice. And when I say know, I mean only those facts that are beyond dispute. I will sit at my father’s desk so I may make notes.’
Daniel obeyed, slowly. In her own way, she was as intimidating as her father.
She looked at him enquiringly, pencil poised.
He tried to marshal his thoughts: definitely facts only, no conclusions. He told her what the police had reported about the finding of the body: when, where, who, how, and what they believed to be the cause of death.
She wrote many notes. She worked so rapidly that he wondered if she had her own form of shorthand.
‘And Mr Graves was tried for the crime and found guilty?’ she asked.
‘Yes . . .’ He did not know what to call her, whether she was Doctor or Miss, so he left it open.
‘What evidence is there that it was he?’ she asked.
‘There was no break-in, and he was the only one in the house unaccounted for at the time she died. The body was discovered at ten in the evening. There were no other people present except the family, and the household servants.’
‘So, could she not have let someone in, or it was someone already in the house?’ she said quietly. ‘Interesting . . . and sad. It is always sad when someone is killed by a person they know well, a family member. But I believe it happens quite often. Tell me about the burning you mentioned.’
