Sliderâs face. âSheâs got to be a possible.â
Slider explained the various matters relating to keys, fingermarks and choice of weapon.
Porson looked gloomy. âSheâd be a bastard to prove unless you get a good strong motive. She could leave herself behind all over the place and it wouldnât mean a thing. Mind you, if it was me in her shoes, Iâdâve worn the gloves, cleaned the statue and put it back on the mantelpiece.â
âUnless she wanted to make it look as if it
wasnât
her,â Slider said. âWeâd have found traces on the statue eventually, and that would have put her squarely in the frame.â
âPoint. Except that they never think like that â lucky for us. Well, carry on. Hammersmithâs lost interest a bit what with one thing and another, and given it wasnât anyone famous, but it only takes a slow news day and weâre back in the spotlight. The bugger of it is,â he concluded gloomily, âshowing someone was there isnât going to get us anywhere.â
Slider had already made the acquaintance of that particular bugger.
He made Joanna go to bed as soon as she got home from the concert, and took her up a mug of Ovaltine.
âOh, Daddy!â she simpered, fluttering her eyelids, but he could see how tired she was. They were too much, these long days and the strain of trying to be perfect in a fiercely competitive world; but he had expressed his doubts already, and could not press them without disrespecting her right to self-determination. He got on the bed beside her with his own mug, and she opened the batting â to keep him, he guessed, from saying the things he had just decided he mustnât.
âSo how did it go? Whatâs it looking like?â
âItâs looking like a long haul.â He told her some of the details.
âThe housekeeper, obviously,â she said at the end of it. âAll you need is a motive.â
âAll!â
âWell, you know what I mean.â
âIn any case, motives are usually the feeblest of things. It could be something as small as him telling her off about not cleaning something properly. How would you ever find that out? And any forensic evidence about her is automatically out of play because she had every right to be there.â He sighed. âI donât see this one coming in quickly.â
She sipped, and then as he drew breath to speak she got in first. âWhat about your dadâs escapade today? Isnât that intriguing?â
âIâm more amazed than intrigued. Kate voluntarily went to an art gallery? Which Tate was it â Original or New Improved?â
âThe Modern,â Joanna said, âso I expect sheâd heard of it somewhere on the âcoolâ spectrum. Iâm more intrigued that he wanted to inflict them on his girlfriend.â
âWhich one was it?â
âOh Bill,â she said reproachfully, âitâs been Lydia Hurst for ages. Lydia from the Scrabble club?â
âOh,â he said, recalibrating. âDo you think itâs serious?â
âIntroducing your grandchildren?â Joanna said. âI think itâs a seniorâs version of taking her home to meet the parents.â
âHeâs not brought her to see us yet,â Slider complained.
âDoesnât want to frighten her off, maybe. This was a toe in the water. If she survived the children intact â¦â She shrugged.
âWell, itâll be nice for him to get married again, I suppose,â he said, wondering what was the appropriate reaction â wondering, indeed, what he felt about such a notion. His mother had died so long ago, and his father had lived an almost monastic life in the farm cottage where Slider had been born, until his recent move to a granny-flat attached to their new house. In all those years he had never seemed to want female companionship, and the only woman