I Hear the Sirens in the Street

produced a flask with a paisley design on the side, unscrewed the plastic lid and poured a cup of tea into a white plastic mug.
    “I also brought a flask of gin, if you want to slip that in there,” she said, as if that would be the most natural thing in the world.
    “No, you’re all right, thanks.”
    I took the tea, which was weak and very sweet. The way I liked it. The type of tea you were supposed to give to people to stop them going into shock.
    “Dougherty came to see you, didn’t he?” I asked.
    “Yes.”
    “What about?”
    “I think he may have been drunk. He had certainly been drinking.”
    “What did he talk to you about?”
    “In an extremely vulgar manner he demanded to know exactly where I had been when Martin got shot.”
    “And what did you tell him?”
    “I told him that I was in the kitchen.”
    “And what did he say to that?”
    “He said that he didn’t believe me. He said that I wasn’t telling him everything.”
    “And what did you say to that?”
    “I told him that no one could call me a liar in my own home and I asked him to leave.”
    “And did he leave?”
    “No. He did not. He abused me in the most disgraceful language. At one point I felt that he was going to strike me.”
    “And then?”
    “Well, then he did leave, but not before melodramaticallypromising that he would return.”
    I rubbed my chin and leaned back into the sofa cushions.
    “But he didn’t return, did he?”
    “No.”
    “Did he call you or have any other communication with you?”
    “No.”
    “And you didn’t go see him?”
    “Of course not.”
    She looked at me. Her blue eyes were not entirely pleasant. They radiated an icy quality. Not quite contempt but not far off it. Distance, a lack of concern.
    “What are you reading?” I asked in a lower register.
    “It isn’t the Bible, since you ask.”
    “The Bible was on my mind. Someone called me up and asked me to meet them and when I went there they had left a note,” I explained, leaving out the chase scene.
    “That sounds like fun,” she said. “What did the note say?”
    “It was a Bible verse.”
    “And?”
    “‘Now I see through a glass darkly.’”
    “What does that mean?”
    “I have no idea.”
    She grinned and slapped her thigh. “Oh, I get it. You thought I was reading the Bible and that maybe I was the person who left you the note, is that it?”
    “It was a woman on the phone. But it was an English woman.”
    “Maybe I was disguising my voice.”
    “Maybe you were.”
    “I didn’t call you and I didn’t leave you a note. How would I get your number anyway?”
    “I’m in the book.”
    “Oh.”
    “And I went to see your brother-in-law.”
    “Why?”
    “Just to be nosey.”
    “And what did you find out?”
    “His cars are in a bad way.”
    “His cars?”
    “The Bentley and the Roller. Beautiful machines sadly gone to pot. He should at least keep them in a garage.”
    “Are you aware of the Japanese concept of mono no aware , the bitter sweetness of things?”
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “The Japanese sages say the best way to appreciate beauty is to focus on its transient, fragile and fleeting nature.”
    I nodded. “Is that what your brother-in-law’s doing? I thought he was just a careless fucker.”
    “And what else did you learn from your visit to Red Hall?” she asked.
    “He’s a knight. It’s Sir Harry McAlpine. He’s been to see the Queen. Somebody gave him a knighthood.”
    She shook her head. “Nobody gave him a knighthood. He’s a baronet.”
    “What’s a baronet when it’s at home?”
    “It’s the lowest order of peerage.”
    I must have looked blank because she elaborated. “It goes Prince, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, Baron, Baronet. It’s hereditary. It goes to the eldest son. Harry is the third Baronet. It means very little.”
    “I wouldn’t say that. He’s got a title and he’s got money.”
    “Money!” she laughed. “He’s as poor as a church mouse.”
    “He’s got that big house, all this land …”
    “Heavens, Inspector. This land? Well, yes, he owns everything from here to the sea and I’m a tenant and there are half a dozen farms on the other side of the hill, but none of that matters: it’s all bogland, it’s practically worthless and that big house is a shambles. The top floor is shut up, the walls are crumbling …”
    “The house isn’t in great nick, but with all this property he’shardly a candidate for the poor house, is