Murder in Hampstead by Sabina Manea (read this if txt) 📕

common sense between them. You’ll have me out of my job at this rate,’ he added with a wink. ‘She’s a very slippery character, our Professor. I’ve got some contacts left in the Home Office – people I met through my parents, and who’ve owed me a few favours over the years. I’ll see if they can get hold of anything that might enlighten us.’

‘There’s something else. After the visit to Clapham, I went back to the Red Lion. Adam was there and acting very strangely. Something is going on that is severely unsettling him,’ Lucia said. She pondered whether to mention Adam’s regular tête-à-têtes with Danny but decided to hang on to that fact for now – she didn’t see how it was relevant to the Professor’s death. ‘According to the barmaid, who doesn’t miss much, he’s got serious money trouble. It seems the Professor wasn’t being especially generous with her factotum.’

‘Hmm. I’ll see what I can shake out of him, and that funny housekeeper of theirs. Right, I’d better go find them both. Are you OK to hang around till I’m done, so I can fill you in on all the dirt?’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere.’ Lucia had plans of her own – some quiet snooping upstairs while the interviewees were detained.

Chapter 11

The basement stairs creaked, signalling that the two witnesses were heading out of the kitchen. Carliss went ahead to meet them. Lucia busied herself examining a wall just outside the drawing room where she could get a good view. Adam was the first to emerge, followed by Mrs Byrne’s dragging steps. Their faces bore the marks of sleep deprivation – unsurprisingly, given the recent horror they had experienced. Lucia couldn’t be absolutely certain from her vantage point, but she thought she could detect another sentiment – guilt, laced with a touch of fear.

Carliss gave the uneasy-looking duo a comforting smile. ‘Mrs Byrne, Mr Corcoran. I do apologise to have kept you. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, and I’m sorry for having to intrude again at such a difficult time. I know you’ve already given your statements, so I’ll do my best to avoid repetition. Mrs Byrne, would you please follow me to the drawing room? Mr Corcoran, I won’t keep you long.’

Adam loitered behind them, unsure what to do with himself. Lucia seized the opportunity and narrowed in. ‘Hello, Adam. How are you holding up?’

He jumped. ‘Lucia, I didn’t see you there. You startled me. I’m as well as can be, under the circumstances. It’s awful. I just can’t stop thinking of poor Auntie suffering like that.’ He didn’t appear altogether convinced by his own predicament.

‘I know this is probably the last thing on your mind, but have you thought what you want to do about decorating? I’d assumed you wanted me to carry on, so I’ve been turning up as usual, but I totally understand if you want to call it off.’

He looked perversely cheered up by the change of tack and scanned the entrance hall with scarcely concealed satisfaction. ‘On the contrary. In fact, I’m glad you’ve mentioned it. I was going to call you, but since you’re here, even better. I’d very much like you to carry on with the work.’

‘No problem. I’d be very happy to stay on if you’d like me to and if I’m not intruding.’

‘Thanks, Lucia. Don’t be daft, you’re not intruding. If I’m honest, it’s nice to have another soul around the place. The house is far too big for me and Mrs B.’

Lucia made a mental note of the exchange as extremely informative. She didn’t delude herself that the apparent trust he put in her stemmed from genuine appreciation. He simply didn’t see her as a threat, having relegated her to the category of unobtrusive domestic help. The invisibility of service was a source of eternal fascination to her. This viewing point offered an uncompromising insight into the lives that she so easily entered. Her clients thought nothing of laying their existence bare before a total stranger, on the premise that money exchanging hands could somehow buy her blindness. Adam headed out of the front door, cigarette at the ready. His muffled voice was barely audible from inside – he must have been on the phone.

With Adam suitably distracted, Lucia decided to take her chances and venture upstairs. Now her engagement was secure, she had the ideal excuse to roam the place at her leisure. There was plenty of wallpaper to steam off, as well as old plastering to survey, and so no room was out of bounds. As she braved the lofty staircase, she noticed the dust had settled thickly on the bannister. She would start with the Professor’s inner sanctum – the library. It felt like opening a secret door into another world. Despite the recent warm weather, the windows were firmly shut, leaving no escape for the smell of dry paper and overheated leather. Lucia made a superhuman effort not to sneeze.

The room was unchanged since her meeting with Professor Kiseleva. The desk was cluttered with old lecture notes, drafts of articles and what appeared to be an indiscriminate choice of books on a variety of areas of mathematics. The Professor seemed to move from one idea to the next until she narrowed in on her subject. The latest notes were on her draft book, a comparative study of Soviet and US research into the automation of decision-making. Dropping maths at the first opportunity at school had left Lucia’s scientific knowledge embarrassingly lacking, a fact she now regretted. None of the content made much sense. Drafts upon drafts of the same chapters were covered in indecipherable red scribbles, like the remains of moribund insects that had crawled across the page to their death.

As much as Lucia would have wanted to linger in the library, she was conscious that time was of the