Ten Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler Page A

famous for exposing details about her private life that no decent wife would share with her husband; it was nothing to do with having artistic talent. We were deeply ashamed of her.'
    And you're more ashamed than ever now, thought Meera. She died before you could find a way to call a truce. 'Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm her? A former boyfriend? Someone who hated her work? Perhaps even someone who felt jealous of her fame?'
    'There were plenty of boyfriends. The artist, and her supposed mentor. She left the first one when she started to make sales.'
    'Do you remember his name?'
    'Oh, it was something strange and made up, the way they do.' Mrs White stopped. 'Don't give me that disapproving look, young lady. You think I'm just one of those undemonstrative Englishwomen who never showed her daughter love. But it wasn't like that. We only ever wanted her to be happy. Of course we hoped she would share our values, even if she considered them old-fashioned. We believe in dignity, honesty, and Christian kindness—there's nothing so unusual in that, is there? Some emotions require privacy. Why would she want to throw it all up in our faces? I don't understand.' Her fingers traced the outline of a photograph on the side table. 'I still can't believe our sweet little girl changed into such a monstrous person. This is a terribly poisonous time to be young.'
    Meera realised she was ashamed to be seen crying, and watched with a softening heart. 'We'll talk to everyone who knew her,' she promised. 'We have every hope that her killer will be found. We'll try to give you back your little girl.'
    But she wondered if such comforting words were true. It was the lonely who left themselves open to attack. Eleanor White's daughter had been insulated by a public life and a large circle of friends. It made her death all the more unlikely, and the chance of discovering its cause almost impossible. They left Eleanor White sitting in her floral lounge, bewildered and diminished, surrounded by the silverframed memories of a daughter she now realised she had never tried to understand.

11

    DEPARTING SOUL
    'Ah, there you are,' said Arthur Bryant, strolling into the damp converted school gymnasium in Bayham Street that passed for an autopsy room. To combat the falling temperature, he had swiped a shapeless brown roll-neck sweater from the unit's evidence room that made him look even more like a deshelled tortoise.
    'Where else would I be, seeing as my rehousing request has been declined?' Oswald Finch, the unit's pathologist and the only man on the force older than Bryant, straightened his bony back with a series of audible clicks, scowling at the covered body in his aluminium trough. His permanent look of disdain had left him with a face like a sepia photograph that had been crumpled up and flattened out again.
    'Yes, I heard about the refusal. I'm afraid it's the new Home Office chap, Leslie Faraday. He's been appointed to oversee the operation of all specialist units, and isn't happy about our meagre budget rise. The usual story: He's never been too ambitious, but now he fancies making a name for himself. I daresay he thinks he can do so by getting us closed down in the ruthless drive for efficiency. It's the unsolved cases; we've too many on our books. It makes him look bad.'
    'Of course it does,' Finch barked. 'Good God, look at your resources, they're embarrassing. You've no crime lab of your own, you're forever cadging equipment downtime from the Met. We live in an era of mitochondrial DNA matches, environmental signature indices, and psychological profiling, and you're still sullying crime scenes with your sausage fingers and poking about in filthy old books on Wiccan mythology. You're a living anachronism, Bryant. The only grant you're likely to get will be from the National Trust: Upkeep of Ancient Monuments.'
    Coming from a man who swore he was present at the first demonstration of television, this was a bit rich. Finch