“I’ll never understand why he forgave his brothers,” she said. “After what they’d done to him, they deserved to die.”

The bitterness behind her words burned. He closed the book slowly, marking the place with a scrap of paper from the desk. “But he had something they needed.”

“Food,” she scoffed.

He removed his spectacles. “I don’t think it had anything at all to do with food. Not really,” he noted. “What’s above stairs?”

The second floor of the house was simple: four bedrooms, lavatory, bathroom, all opening off a central, square landing illuminated by a skylight of opaque glass. An obvious modernisation to the house, this last architectural feature gave the effect of being in a greenhouse. Not altogether unpleasant, but unusual on a farm.

The room on their right appeared to be a guest room. A neatly made, pink-counterpaned bed, a rather smallish affair considering the size of the house’s occupants, stood against one wall on a rug printed with a design of roses and ferns. It was obviously quite old, and the once brilliant reds and greens were muted now, bleeding one into the other in a soothing rust. The walls were hung with paper on which tiny flowers-dairies and marigolds-sprinkled down. On the bedside table a small lamp stood upon a circle of lace. The chest of drawers held nothing, as did the wardrobe.

“Reminds me of a room in an inn,” Lynley remarked.

Barbara noted the view from the window: an uninteresting panorama of the barn and the yard. “Looks as if no one’s ever used it.”

Lynley was examining the counterpane across the bed. He pulled it back to reveal a badly stained mattress and a yellowing pillow. “No guests expected here. Odd to leave a bed unmade, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not at all. Why put sheets on it if it’s never going to be used?”

“Except that-”

“Look, shall I go on to the next room, Inspector?” Barbara asked impatiently. The house was oppressing her.

Lynley glanced up at the tone of her voice. He drew the counterpane back over the bed exactly as it had been placed before and sat on the edge. “What is it, Barbara?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied, but she heard the edge of panic in her voice. “I’d just like to get on with it. This room obviously hasn’t been used in years. Why examine every inch of it like Sherlock Holmes, as if the murderer were going to pop out of the fl oorboards?”

He didn’t reply at once, so the shrillness of her voice seemed to linger in the room long after she had spoken. “What’s wrong?” he repeated. “May I help?” His eyes were on her, dark with their concern, so infi nitely kind. It would indeed be easy-

“There’s nothing wrong!” she exploded. “I just don’t want to have to follow you around like a spaniel dog. I don’t know what you expect of me. I feel like an idiot. I’ve a brain, goddammit! Give me something to do!”

He got to his feet, his eyes still on her. “Why don’t you go across the landing and deal with the next room,” he suggested.

She opened her mouth to say more, decided against it, and left him, pausing for a moment in the greenish light of the landing. She could hear her own breathing, harsh and loud, and knew he must be able to hear it as well.

That damnable shrine! The farm itself was bad enough with its ghastly lifelessness, but the shrine had completely unnerved her. It had been set up in the very fi nest corner of the room. With a view of the garden, Barbara thought weakly. Tony has the telly and she has the damn garden!

What had Lynley called it? A religion. Yes, sweet Jesus! A temple to Tony! She compelled her breathing to return to normal, crossed the landing, and went into the next room.

That’s torn it, Barb, she told herself. What happened to agreement, to obedience, to cooperation? How will you feel back in uniform next week?

She looked about furiously, her lips quivering in disgust. Well, who bloody well cared? After all, it was a preordained failure. Had she really expected this to be a success?

She crossed the room to the window and fumbled with the latch. What had he said? What is it? May I help? The insanity was that for just a moment, she had actually thought about talking to him, about telling him everything there was to tell. But, of course, it was unthinkable. No one could help, least of all Lynley.

She unlocked the window, threw it open to feel the fresh air on her burning cheeks, then turned back, determined to do her job.

This was Roberta’s room, neat like the other, but with a lived-in air about it. A largae four-poster was covered by a quilt, a patchwork affair with a bright, cheerfu design of sun, clouds, and rainbow on a sapphire background sky. Clothes hung in the wardrobe. Sturdy shoes-work shoes, walking shoes, slippers-stood lined beneath them. There were a dressing table with a wavy cheval glass, and a chest of drawers on which a framed photograph lay, face down, as if it had toppled over. Barbara glanced at it curiously. Mother, father, and a newborn Roberta in the father’s arms. But the picture itself, slightly distended, was crowded into its frame as if it didn’t quite fit. She turned the frame in her hands and prised off the backing.

She was correct in her guess. The photograph had been too large for the purchased frame, so it had been folded back. Unfolded, the picture was very much different, for to the left of the father, hands clasped behind her, stood the mirror image of the baby’s mother, a smaller version, certainly, but undoubtedly the offspring of Tessa Teys.

Barbara was about to call out to Lynley when he came to the door, a photograph album in his hands. He paused as if trying to decide how to get their relationship back in order.

“I’ve found the strangest thing, Sergeant,” he said.

“As have I,” she replied, as determined as he to forget her outburst. They exchanged their items.

“Yours explains mine, I dare say,” Lynley remarked.

She gave curious attention to the open pages of the album. It was a pictorial family record, the kind that documents weddings and births, Christmas, Easter, and birthdays. But every picture that had more than one child in it had been cut up in some way, oddly defaced, so that pictures had central slices missing or wedges cut into them, and the size of the family was systematically reduced in every one. The effect was chilling.

“A sister of Tessa’s, I’d say,” Lynley observed.

“Perhaps her first child,” Barbara offered.

“Surely she’s too old to be a first child unless Tessa produced her when she was a child herself.” He set the frame down, slipped the photograph into his pocket, and turned his attention to the drawers. “Ah,” he said, “at least we know why Roberta was so anxious for the Guardian. She’s lined her drawers with it. And…Havers, look at this.” From the bottom drawer, beneath a pile of worn jerseys, he pulled something which had been placed face down, hidden. “The mystery girl once again.”

Barbara looked at the photograph he handed to her. It was the same girl, but older this time, a teenager. She and Roberta were standing in the snow in St. Catherine’s churchyard, both grinning at the camera. The older girl had her hands on Roberta’s shoulders, pulling her back against her. She had bent over- although certainly not far, for Roberta was nearly as tall as she-and had pressed her cheek to the other girl’s. Her dark gold hair touched Roberta’s brown curls. In front of them, with Roberta’s hand clutched into his fur, was a border collie who looked very much as if he were grinning as well. Whiskers.

“Roberta doesn’t look half bad there,” Barbara said, handing the picture to Lynley. “Big, but not fat.”

“Then this must have been taken sometime before Gibson left. Remember what Stepha said? She’d not been fat then, not until Richard was gone.” He pocketed the additional photograph and looked round the room. “Anything else?” he asked.