‘Please tell me what progress you are making finding this … woman,’ Prophet said.

‘Frankly, Mr Prophet, it isn’t easy. But have no fear, we will catch her in due course.’

‘You have something of a reputation, Inspector. The word round town is – like the Mounties – you always get your man?’

Angel looked at him, but said nothing. What was there to say?

‘Or, in this case,’ Prophet added, ‘your woman.’

‘I hope not to fail this time, Mr Prophet,’ he said evenly. ‘That’s why I am here. There are one or two points on which I would like clarification.’

Prophet nodded. ‘Of course. Fire away.’

‘There’s the matter of the description of Lady Blessington. You are probably the person who knew her the best … saw her the most, after your dear wife. Other witnesses say she that she had a squawky voice, unusually high-pitched.’

‘I never detected anything unusual in the way she spoke, Inspector. I thought that she spoke perfectly normally: educated, pleasant enough, with no particular accent.’

Angel nodded.

‘How old do you think she was?’

‘Must have been over sixty, I would have thought.’

Angel rubbed his chin. ‘Everybody else thought she was younger: between forty and sixty.’

‘Maybe she was. I am, perhaps, not good at assessing ladies’ ages. She was always pretending to be something she wasn’t. She was clearly unstable to have committed such a heinous crime.’ He stopped, swallowed and then added, ‘It’s hard for me to speak … dispassionately.’

‘Of course. Of course. Forgive my asking these sorts of questions.’

‘That’s all right. You have your job to do and I do want to help.’

‘You believe that she murdered your wife because she couldn’t extract any more money from her?’

‘Convinced of it. What other explanation could there be?’

‘I don’t know. And have you absolutely no idea where she lived … or where she came from?’

‘I believe she said that she had a small cottage in Norfolk.’

Angel looked up interestedly. That was new.

‘What part of Norfolk? Did she mention the town?’

‘Of course not,’ he said wryly.

‘Did she come here by train?’

Prophet said: ‘I really wasn’t interested enough to bother to find out these details, Inspector. I simply wanted her to leave us alone. As I have said, I never liked the woman and tried to put Alicia off her, but poor dear, she was always willing to help anyone who came to her with a sob story. This woman was clearly … deranged.’

‘Would it surprise you to learn that she wasn’t titled?’

‘Nothing about Cora would surprise me.’

‘We just can’t get a lead on her? Did she ever express any interest in a particular place, apart from Norfolk, where she might have bolted to. She’s disappeared off the face of the earth. Any information would be most welcome.’

Prophet wrinkled his nose. ‘Alicia once said that she had spoken fondly about the sunshine in Florida, I recall. But that was probably only a passing fancy.’

Angel sighed. Florida was a big state. He hoped that it would not come to contacting the Federal Police over there.

‘Well, if you think of anything…?’

‘Of course.’

Angel consulted his notes.

‘Now, about Margaret Gaston. She said she didn’t go to your house that … Monday.’

‘She doesn’t work for us on Mondays.’

‘Did you take any shopping into your wife anytime on that day? There was some shopping found in the pantry and some money, £6.56, found on the draining board in the kitchen.’

Prophet frowned. ‘No. It was not I,’ he said. ‘I had not yet returned to the house after I left for the office on the morning of that dreadful day; still haven’t. I’m staying at The Feathers Hotel.’

Angel nodded and said, ‘There must be some explanation. Your wife was completely blind, wasn’t she? She wasn’t capable of doing any shopping, was she?’

‘Of course not. Mrs Duplessis, next door, may have brought in that shopping, but it sounds more likely to have been Margaret Gaston. My wife may have asked her to shop for some things and to pop them in on her way back from town. And it was quite usual for her to put the change and leave any messages on the draining board in the kitchen.’

‘Did she have a key?’

‘No, but she wouldn’t need a key. The door would have been unlocked. Both doors, front and back, were unlocked. It was easier for Alicia, you see.’

‘And oranges. Did your wife like oranges?’

‘Why, yes, of course,’ Prophet said, looking at him with eyebrows raised.

‘There were some freshly bought oranges in the outside rubbish bin, and orange peel strewn about the settee. Do you know anything about that?’

‘No. Sounds very odd.’

Angel’s lips stretched back tight across his teeth as he nodded.

‘Lady B was, by all accounts, tall, sir,’ Gawber said. ‘All the witnesses are quite agreed on that. And that picture of her was above that girl’s bed. Now Margaret Gaston is quite tall. Put that blue dress on her, a wig, the hat and the trainers and, I think we’d have a Lady Blessington look alike. It must have been her. It would explain the shopping in the pantry, the money on the draining board, the orange peel over the body and the oranges in the dustbin?’

‘I am satisfied that the orange peel over the body was to try to put the blame for the murder on Reynard, but we now know it couldn’t have been him.’

‘I realize that, sir.’

‘But the lass is … too beautiful to be Lady B,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘And seems to be a lot younger.’

‘She could have worn a mask.’

Angel looked up at him. He accepted that that was a possibility.

‘She’d probably manage the strained voice all right, Ron,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you that. She’d just have to talk an octave or so higher.’

‘And she’s very hard up, sir. Desperate for money. You said she was on the game.’

‘Aye. Got that little lad, Carl, to bring up, hasn’t she? Another one-parent family. Hmmm.’

‘It might help if we knew who the father was.’

‘It might. It might very well, Ron,’ he said heavily and then he stood up. ‘I’ll think about it over the weekend. Right now, I’m going to the hospital. See Spencer. Then I’m going straight home. I’ve had enough of this week. See you on Monday.’

The woman at the hospital reception desk directed him to Room 12, Ward 23 on the second floor. He found it, tapped on the door and waited a couple of seconds. There was no reply so he pressed down the handle and walked in.

It was a single room with minimum furniture: bed, locker, chair, sink and a pedestal fan. There was a patient on the bed, not covered by blankets or sheets, but encased in bandages except for the eyes, nose, mouth and hands. Angel assumed it was a man.

The patient was resting on his side on a big pile of pillows on an unusually large bed; he had his knees bent so that he was almost in a foetal position. The fan was blowing a cool breeze over him. As Angel closed the door, he turned his head slightly to look round at his visitor.

‘Mr Spencer?’ Angel said. ‘Simon Spencer?’

‘Yes,’ the man said, groaning. ‘Can you tell me how much longer I am going to be bandaged up like this?’

Angel found the chair.

‘I’m not a doctor, Mr Spencer. I’m Detective Inspector Angel.’

‘Ooooh,’ he moaned.

‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

‘So they tell me,’ he said sourly. ‘Don’t I recognize you? Weren’t you and another chap fastened up in Glazer’s barn, when that lunatic threw that bomb in it?’

Angel nodded.

‘And you’re in the police?’ His voice indicated that the fact was stretching his belief. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘I think you know what I want,’ he said evenly.

‘No,’ Spencer said. ‘I have no idea. You’ll have to spell it out.’

‘I am investigating the murder of Harry Harrison also known as Harry Henderson.’

‘Well, he was a little worm, but good gracious, I didn’t have anything to do with that.’