Birth Marks by Sarah Dunant Page A

never met. What’s he to her or her to Hecuba, that I should cry for any of them. I’d do better to save my tears for friends and relatives. Since there was nothing more to say I didn’t prolong the agony. She sounded relieved when I said goodbye.
    But, of course, it wasn’t that easy. Inside my head the mouse was already on the treadmill and the faster he went the worse it got. When I had started the case she had been alive. And what had I done? Seen a couple of people, snooped around an empty flat, written a lousy report and watched an even lousier movie. While those who weren’t busy being born were busy dying. Bob Dylan should have been a private eye. The mouse began to hyperventilate and fell off the wheel. Let it rest, Hannah, this doesn’t help anyone. Carolyn Hamilton went AWOL from life and when it all got too much for her she threw herself off a bridge into black water. I had been chasing a shadow and someone else had found the body. Case closed. If I still felt guilty at the end of the week I could always send the money back in the form of memorial flowers.
    I used the morning for loose ends. I would, I had promised Miss Patrick, send back her file with the postcards and photographs, but when it came to putting them into their registered package I found myself taking copies of all of them, just in case. And since it seemed rather callous, just shoving the photos away in a drawer somewhere, I put them back on the mantelpiece, alongside the watercolour view of Venice and sandstone cat from India.
    The envelope I had filched from her flat was more troublesome. Technically it now belonged to her next of kin, although more technically it ought at this moment to have been in the possession of the police who were, presumably, busy working out past movements and motives. What if the electricity, gas and telephone had been the only debts she could afford to pay and it was the credit cards that had hounded her to a watery grave? That left Hannah Wolfe guilty of suppression of evidence. On the other hand if I gave it back to them I risked an additional charge of breaking and entering. I decided not to decide yet. It wouldn’t take them long to find me anyway, even if Miss Patrick had chosen to keep her own counsel.
    Two days to be exact: one to track down the Pink Cherubim, and the other to read the words on my card. When I opened the door there were two of them, but then there always are. Frank used to say that one was the eyes while the other was the ears. And I used to say that left a problem with the brain which explained a lot. In this case all the eyes picked up was a load of dirty washing and a living-room that hadn’t been cleaned in an age, while the ears heard everything I had to tell them, except for the bits that broke the law. As far as I remember I didn’t actually lie, it was just when it came down to it their condescension and more-knowledgeable-than-thou attitude got right up my nose. If they were as good at their job as they claimed, let them find out about the bank statements and the court orders. Frankly they didn’t seem interested. No doubt to them Carolyn Hamilton was just another girl from the north who’d discovered that the London streets weren’t paved with gold. All they really seemed to want to know was about boyfriends. Or maybe that was all they thought female private detectives were good for. Anyway I gave them Eyelashes and wished them luck. In return they told me the body had been in water since early on Saturday night. That made me feel better about how I’d spent my Sunday. I tried them with a few other queries but they got shy and said I’d have to wait until the inquest. They promised to phone me with the date. In the end they didn’t. Untrustworthy buggers. But then, I suppose, they thought the same about me.
    But if I didn’t go to the inquest somebody did. And somebody told someone else. I would have heard it from the