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‘She only came back to visit a couple of times, and it was always in secret, because she was afraid they’d hold her for Tucker’s murder. But she used to write me letters. About Chicago. About the things she was doing there. They were full of lies – but nice lies. Lies that would make me happy for her. And it did make me happy, to think that she was free of this place.’

‘Why do you stay here?’ Juliet asked. There was no indication in her voice of what she was feeling, but I recognised the look on her face. All things considered, it was probably a lucky break for Lucas Seaforth and his three sons that they were dead already.

Ruth’s eyebrows rose and fell again. ‘It’s my home,’ she said. ‘It’s the only place I know, really. And it’s the only place she’d ever be able to find me, if she wanted to come and see me again. And I’m too old to start over, anywhere. I could move, if I wanted to. Insurance paid off a lot when my father died, and it all came to me when there was no one else left to lay claim to it. But I don’t really have any use for money. And I don’t really have any use for travel. I’m happy where I am.’

The last sentence was belied by the tears that sprang up in her eyes and overflowed suddenly down her cheeks. Water in a dry place: she blinked it away almost angrily, but it kept right on coming.

‘You’ll have to go now,’ she said, her voice perfectly clear despite the rain of tears.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Seaforth,’ I said, meaning it. ‘We didn’t want to upset you. But there’s one more thing we’d really like to do while we’re here. If you could just point us to where Myriam’s grave is, with your permission we’ll visit it before we leave.’

Ruth stood up and folded her arms with brittle ferocity. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No?’

‘No, you do not have my permission. Like I said, you have to go. I’m sorry, it’s not because you’ve offended me in any way. I’m just very tired now, and I need to sleep. I hope you’ll take account of my age and do as I ask.’

‘Of course.’ I stood up, and Juliet followed my lead. ‘Thanks for all your help, Miss Seaforth. And I’m sorry if we’ve trespassed on « trOf your time. We’ll let ourselves out.’

Ruth watched us all the way to the door, not moving an inch. I opened the door and stood aside for Juliet to go first, but she waved me through and then didn’t follow. ‘I’ll be a moment,’ she said.

I turned and stared at her. ‘What?’

‘I’ll be a moment, Castor. Wait on the porch.’ She took hold of the door and shut it in my face.

I think it was all that talk about abusive men that made her so brusque – and as symbolic humiliations went, it was one I could walk away from without a permanent limp so on the whole I was cool with it. I sat on the porch swing and waited for Juliet to finish whatever business she had with Ruth that required my not being there.

She came out about a quarter of an hour later, shot me a look in passing and walked on down the steps back into the thick, encroaching undergrowth. I jumped to my feet, ran and caught her up.

‘Is it this way?’ I asked, falling in beside her.

She didn’t look in my direction, or slow down. ‘Is what this way?’

‘Myriam’s grave.’

‘No. It isn’t.’

‘Then-?’

‘I’ll tell you in the car.’

We retraced out steps in silence, back to our bloodied, bowed Cobalt, and I unlocked the doors. When we were inside we sat in silence for a moment. Then, since Juliet didn’t speak, I started the car up and got us out onto the road. There was no way we’d make it all the way back to Birmingham in this undead heap, but we could drive into Brokenshire and then make some calls, see where we had to go to drop it off and pick ourselves up another ride for the homeward leg of the journey. Best pick another road, though: the one we’d come on was probably still blocked.

18

The waitress at the Golden Coffee House had clearly taken a fancy to Juliet: the fried-chicken platters she brought us were huge even by American standards, which meant that for a Brit like myself, with a delicate constitution, they were a little way short of a suicide note. I picked fastidiously while Juliet talked.

‘The blond man from out of town,’ she said. ‘The one who killed Tyler Seaforth, the first brother.’

‘Yeah.’ I ran the conversation through again in my mind, placed the reference. ‘The guy in the ice-cream suit. What about him?’

‘He wasn’t just from out of town. He was from England. London, in fact. That’s why Ruth almost had a heart attack when she heard your accent.’

That made a lot of sense now I thought about it. I’d figured at the time that it was the mention of Myriam that had made Ruth weak at the knees: but there couldn’t be many other reasons besides Myriam why strangers would come calling, so that hadn’t made a whole lot of sense.