Callander Square - Anne Perry [101]
Pitt sighed and stood up.
“I shan’t believe anyone, Mr. Southeron, until I have more evidence. But I shall remember what you have said, every word of it. Thank you for your time. Good morning, sir.”
As soon as he had gone Reggie collapsed. It was appalling! God alone knew where the end of it lay. Scandal! Ruin! He felt ill. The room swam around him and darkened into visions of penury—vague, because he had never actually known it—but none the less frightful for that.
He was still sitting slumped over the table when Adelina came in.
“You look ill,” she observed. “Have you eaten too much?”
Her cold unconcern was the last cut to a sore, wounded man.
“Yes, I am ill!” he said angrily. “The police have just been here. Freddie Bolsover has been murdered.” He watched her face, satisfied to see the shock in it.
“Murdered!” she sat down sharply. “How dreadful. Whatever for? Was he robbed?”
“I’ve no idea!” he snapped. “He was just murdered!”
“Poor Sophie,” Adelina stared down the table past Reggie into the distance. “She’ll be quite utterly lost.”
“Never mind about Sophie! What about us? He was murdered, Adelina, don’t you understand that? That means someone murdered him, crept out there in the dark and stuck a knife into him, or hit him over the head, or whatever.”
“Very unpleasant,” she agreed. “People can be very wicked.”
“Is that all you can say?” His voice was rising to a shout, out of control. “God damn it, woman, that bounder from the police all but accused me of it!”
She did not seem impressed, far less frightened.
“Why should they do that? You could have no reason for killing Freddie. He was a friend.”
“He was a blackmailer!”
“Freddie? Nonsense. Who on earth would he blackmail?”
“He’s a doctor, you stupid woman! He could blackmail any of his patients!”
Still she was not apparently moved.
“Doctors are not allowed to tell the things about their patients that are confidential. If they did, they would get no more patients. Freddie would never do that. It would be foolish. And don’t call me stupid, Reggie. It’s very rude, and there’s no need for rudeness. I’m sorry Freddie is dead, but becoming hysterical won’t help.”
“I don’t understand you!” he was angry, frightened, and now utterly bewildered. “You were weeping all over the place about Helena, and here is Freddie dead and you don’t seem to care at all!”
“That was different. Helena was carrying a child.” Her voice dropped at the memory of it. “That child died before it was ever born. If you were a woman, you would understand that. I look at my own children, and of course I weep. Children are all a woman really has.” She looked at him with a sudden harshness. “We carry them, and bear them, bring them into the world, love them, listen to them, advise them, and see that they are married well. All you do is pay the bills, and boast about them if they do something well. I’m sorry Freddie is dead, but I really can’t weep about it. I shall be sorry for Sophie of course, because she has no children. And how do you know Freddie was a blackmailer?”
“What?”
“You said Freddie was a blackmailer. How do you know that?”
“Oh,” he scrambled for an answer, “someone told me. Confidence, you know, can’t tell you about it.”
“Don’t be fatuous, Reggie. People don’t tell you about things like that. He must have been blackmailing you. Was he?”
“Of course not! There’s nothing to blackmail me about!”
“Then why do the police think you killed him? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know!” he yelled. “I didn’t damn well ask!”
“I thought it might have been about Dolly.”
He froze. She looked like a stranger sitting at the head of the table, monstrous and unknown,