Ha'penny by Jo Walton

anything to leave. The house is mine, as you know.”
    “The house is probably going to be pulled down,” Carmichael said. “It was badly damaged in the blast. And an insurance company will want to know exactly what happened before they agree on compensation.”
    “No doubt,” Kinnerson said. “In any case, it is mine. Beyond that she only had some trinkets. She was never wealthy.”
    “Your mother’s friends?” Carmichael prompted.
    “I don’t know them. We didn’t share social circles at all. She called on me on precisely the occasions when she didn’t want her friends involved. She knew everyone in the theater, of course. I don’t believe she had lovers, not in recent years at least. She was over fifty, you know. She had a strong sense of independence. The only time I was ever close to her was during and directly after the war, when we saw a lot of each other.”
    “She never mentioned close friends to you, more recently, I mean?”
    “Every time I saw her, but not in a useful way.” Kinnerson rolled his eyes. “She’d say she’d been to lunch with Peter, darling boy, and that dear Marmaduke was considering her for a part in his new play, and would you believe that Biff was seeing JuJu now, as if that nonsense with Dandy had been completely forgotten.” He stopped. “If you didn’t know the people, it wasn’t always easy to follow. My wife found her difficult company, so we didn’t see much of her.”
    Carmichael could imagine. “She called on you for support when she wanted someone who wasn’t in that world?” he asked.
    “That’s right, Inspector. I was happy to help her. It wasn’t, whatever Rose may have led you to believe, all that often. I don’t suppose I’ve seen her three times in the last twelve months. A burglary last year, which seems to have been what led to this confusion.” He smiled, tight-lipped. “Taking her to the doctor when she had the flu last winter. Oh, and we had her here on Boxing Day for dinner and a little drinks party with some of our friends.”
    Carmichael couldn’t imagine that going down very smoothly. “What were her politics?” he asked.
    Kinnerson looked at the clock, and then at Royston. “That surely can’t matter now?” he asked.
    “On the contrary, it may be highly important when establishing what motive someone may have had for bombing her.”
    “Well, she was more left than anything else.” Kinnerson frowned.
    “A communist?” Carmichael tried hard to keep his voice even. All the same, Kinnerson took fright at the word.
    “Good God no! What I mean is, she used to vote Labour. She loved Ramsay MacDonald, I remember that, when he was Prime Minister and I was a little boy. She liked Bevan, now, Nye Bevan, she used to say he was the only honest man in Parliament.”
    “Did she know him personally?” Carmichael asked.
    “I don’t know. Probably. She was always meeting politicians. She’d met Ramsay MacDonald at a first night, I remember her telling me about it. She knew Churchill too, and was quite friendly with Lord Scott. But her politics, well, it wasn’t that sort of thing. She’d started off frightfully poor, and she’d got by on her own talent, and she had a sort of fellow feeling for poor people, thinking they ought to get the dole and compensation and so on. Unions. It was more sentiment than anything. She was very talented, and very beautiful when she was younger, but she wasn’t really very bright. But all the same, she’s the last person any sane communist would choose to blow up.”
    “Who do you vote for, sir?” Royston asked. Carmichael frowned at him.
    “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, sergeant,” Kinnerson said, closed tightly back into his shell.
    “No, sir, sorry, sir,” Royston said.
    “You don’t have any idea who might have been with her this morning?” Carmichael asked.
    “I’m afraid not. Now, if that’s all, I really must get back to my wife.”
    Carmichael stood. “If I might