‘Why did you not ask me?’
‘Should I have?’ Fraser’s face fell. ‘I’m terribly sorry. We haven’t got anything on at the moment and I thought you’d appreciate a new case.’
Pünd sighed. He always looked a little pained and put upon – it was part of his general demeanour – but on this occasion, the timing could not have been worse. Even so, he did not raise his voice. As always, he was reasonable. ‘I’m sorry, James,’ he said. ‘I cannot see her right now.’
‘But she’s already on her way.’
‘Then you’ll have to tell her that she has wasted her time.’
Pünd walked past his secretary and into his private rooms. He closed the door behind him.
2
‘You said he would see me.’
‘I know. I’m awfully sorry. But he’s too busy today.’
‘But I took a day off work. I came on the train all the way from Bath. You can’t treat people this way.’
‘You’re absolutely right. But it wasn’t Mr Pünd’s fault. I didn’t look at his diary. If you like, I can pay back your train fare out of petty cash.’
‘It’s not just the train fare. It’s my whole life. I have to see him. I don’t know anyone else who can help.’
Pünd heard the voices from behind the double door that led into his sitting room. He was resting in an armchair, smoking the Sobranie cigarette – black with a gold tip – that he favoured. He had been thinking about his book, the work of a lifetime, already four hundred pages long and nowhere near complete. It had a title: The Landscape of Criminal Investigation. Fraser had typed up the most recent chapter and he drew it towards him. Chapter Twenty-six: Interrogation and Interpretation. He could not read it now. Pünd had thought it would take another year to complete the book. He no longer had that year.
The girl had a nice voice. She was young. He could also tell, even on the other side of a wooden barrier, that she was on the edge of tears. Pünd thought briefly about his illness. Intracranial neoplasm. The doctor had given him three months. Was he really going to spend that time sitting on his own like this, thinking about all the things he couldn’t do? Annoyed with himself, he neatly ground out the cigarette, got up and opened the door.
Joy Sanderling was standing in the corridor, talking to Fraser. She was a small girl, petite in every sense, with fair hair framing a very pretty face and childlike blue eyes. She had dressed smartly to come and see him. The pale raincoat with the sash tying it at the waist was unnecessary in this weather but it looked good on her and he suspected that she had chosen it because it made her seem businesslike. She looked past Fraser and saw him. ‘Mr Pünd?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I know how busy you are. But – please – if you could just give me five minutes of your time? It would mean so much.’
Five minutes. Although she could not know it, it meant so much to both of them.
‘Very well,’ he said. Behind her, James Fraser looked annoyed, as if he had somehow let the side down. But Pünd had made up his mind the moment he had heard her voice. She had sounded so lost. There had been enough sadness today.
He took her into the office, which was comfortable if a little austere. There was a desk and three chairs, an antique mirror, engravings in gold frames, all in the Biedermeier style of nineteenth-century Vienna. Fraser followed them in and took his place at the side of the room, sitting with his legs crossed and a notepad balanced on his knee. He didn’t really have to write anything down. Pünd, who never lost sight of a single detail, would remember every word that was said.
‘Please continue, Miss Sanderling.’
‘Oh, please, call me Joy,’ the girl replied. ‘Actually, my first name is Josie. But everyone calls me Joy.’
‘And you have come all this way from the city of Bath.’
‘I would have come a lot further to see you, Mr Pünd. I’ve read about you in the newspapers. They say you’re the best detective who ever lived, that there’s nothing you can’t do.’
Atticus Pünd blinked. Such flattery always made him a little uncomfortable. With a slightly twitchy movement, he adjusted his glasses and half-smiled. ‘That is very kind of you but, perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves, Miss Sanderling. You must forgive me. We have been very rude. We have not offered you a coffee.’
‘I don’t want a coffee, thank you very much, and I don’t want to waste too much of your time. But I desperately need your help.’
‘Then why don’t you begin by telling us what it is that brings you here?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ She straightened herself in her chair. James Fraser waited with his pen poised. ‘I’ve already told you my name,’ she began. ‘I live in a place called Lower Westwood with my parents and my brother, Paul. Unfortunately, he was born with Down’s syndrome and he can’t look after himself but we’re very close. Actually, I love him to bits.’ She paused. ‘Our house is just outside Bath but I work in a village called Saxby-on-Avon. I have a job in the local surgery, helping Dr Redwing. She’s terribly nice, by the way. I’ve been with her for almost two years now and I’ve been very happy.’
Pünd nodded. He had already taken to this girl. He liked her confidence, the clarity with which she expressed herself.
‘A year ago, I met a boy,’ she went on. ‘He came in because he’d hurt himself quite badly in a car accident. He was mending the car and it almost fell on him. The jack hit his hand and broke a couple of bones. His name is Robert Blakiston. We hit it off pretty much straight away and I started going out with him. I’m very much in love with him. And now the two of us are engaged to be married.’
‘You have my congratulations.’
‘I wish it was as easy as that. Now I’m not sure that the wedding is going ahead at all.’ She produced a tissue and used it to dab at her eye but in a way that was more business-like than overly emotional. ‘Two weeks ago, his mother died. She was buried last weekend. Robert and I went to the funeral together and of course it was horrible. But what made it even worse was the way people looked at him … and since then, all the things they have been saying. The thing is, Mr Pünd, they all think he did it!’
‘You mean … that he killed her?’
‘Yes.’ It took her a few moments to compose herself. Then she continued. ‘Robert never had a very happy relationship with his mother. Her name was Mary and she worked as a housekeeper. There’s this big place – I suppose you’d say it was a manor house – called Pye Hall. It’s owned by a man called Sir Magnus Pye, and it’s been in his family for centuries. Anyway, she did the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping – all that sort of thing – and she lived in the Lodge House down at the gates. That was where Robert grew up.’