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

all day.’ Given the time allegedly expended, the progress on the ground was fairly light. ‘Why don’t I take a break? I’m gasping for a cuppa, and I bet you are too.’

‘I’d love one, Mrs Byrne.’ Lucia was determined to drink as much tea as was necessary to shake down her prey.

After a good ten minutes, the housekeeper returned, weighed down with mugs. ‘No harm in sitting ourselves down for a moment or two.’

They went over to the wrought iron table, which Lucia assumed – indeed hoped – must have been wiped down since it housed the food and drink for the party. The chairs must have been expensive when bought, but the padding had worn down, and they were now downright uncomfortable, like most of the furniture in the house.

‘That’s better.’ The housekeeper took a noisy mouthful of the brew and sighed, wallowing pleasantly in her minor martyrdom. ‘I’m too old for this backbreaking work. Adam won’t get a gardener in. Says we can’t afford such luxuries now… now that she’s gone.’

There it was again – the guilt and, judging by the almost imperceptible tremor in her voice, a touch of fear.

‘You must really miss her. You were with her for so long.’ Lucia’s tone was sympathetic, undemanding. With the right nudge, she was optimistic that Mrs Byrne would open up.

Mrs Byrne paused, stumped for words. She searched for the appropriate response, as she didn’t seem to miss the Professor at all. ‘Yes. I have been here an awfully long time. I’ve given my best years to this place – to her. It’s strange now that she’s gone.’ Since she could not think of anything substantive to contribute, she was repeating herself.

Lucia tried a different route in. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job. And all on your own.’

Her companion’s expression shifted to coy. ‘Hmm, yes. It’s a big old house.’ She paused, unsure whether to carry on. Lucia looked out admiringly onto the garden. ‘It was a lot easier when I had Connor to help me.’ There, she’d said it. Her eyes welled up. She shook her head. ‘Pesky hay fever. You’d think it would be over by now. I bet it’s the pollution. All these huge cars everyone drives nowadays.’

Lucia didn’t want to lose her now, but knew she had to stay put. It was important to maintain an air of non-committed interest – any further probing, and Mrs Byrne would have got spooked.

Sure enough, the tactic worked. ‘Connor was my son, you see.’

At this point, Lucia calculated that some light, direct questioning would be appropriate.

‘Did he work for the Professor too?’

‘He did.’ Mrs Byrne’s expression darkened, but she was too far down the line to put a halt to her involuntary confession. ‘Until she let him go, that is. Oh, I don’t know why I’m bringing this up now. It feels good to talk to someone about it, you know. Ever since that woman died, it’s been police here, there, and everywhere, asking me about the food, the drink, where I made it, where I put it, what the guests were doing. Nobody asked about me. Nobody cared how I felt.’

Lucia thought the housekeeper was doing incredibly well not to cry but realised that over time, the sadness had been insidiously replaced with animosity. Mrs Byrne had no tears left to mourn for her son.

‘I do, Mrs Byrne. I care how you feel. And I want to listen.’

By this point, Mrs Byrne wouldn’t have noticed anything that came from Lucia. She was absolutely determined to get matters off her chest. ‘Poor boy. He didn’t have a father, you see – Michael died when he was little. Connor was ever so good with his hands, and such a gentle lad. Ever since he could walk, he was always following me around, doing what I was doing, wanting to help. He knew it was just the two of us. It wasn’t his fault he started drinking, his father had been the same. I tried so hard to get him to stop, and he was getting better, said he hadn’t touched a drop in weeks. And then the Professor goes and gives him the boot.’

So much anger, hidden deep down inside for so long. Lucia felt genuine regret for prizing this knowledge out of Mrs Byrne, but it had to be done.

‘She said she’d had enough of seeing him stumble around, blind-drunk. She couldn’t trust him, she said. And just like that, my boy was gone.’ Mrs Byrne fixed Lucia with blazing eyes. ‘The next time I saw him was when they fished him out of Camden Lock. I had to identify the body. It’s all that woman’s doing. She killed my son.’

It had taken extraordinary strength to reach the end of her speech. The housekeeper sat back in her chair, drained.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been through. Connor was very lucky to have a mother like you.’

Mrs Byrne smiled a little. She must have rehearsed this story dozens of times in her head, but it was no less painful. She returned to her tea. ‘He was a good boy, my Connor. Fixed everything around the house, and never once answered back. But that wasn’t good enough for her ladyship in the end. Just not good enough.’

There was solace to be found in the Professor’s demise. The story gave the housekeeper a conceivable motive.

Hand in hand with absolution came embarrassment. ‘Look at me sitting here feeling sorry for myself. What’s done is done. You can’t hold a grudge against the dead.’ Mrs Byrne definitely looked like she could. ‘Didn’t mean to be so glum, child. Don’t let me hold you any longer. Those flowers need seeing to.’ She trotted off back to the defenceless dahlias.

Lucia took the mugs back into the house. Much had been achieved. It was time to give