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They entered a large drawing room of homely upper-class comfort, with deep sofas and armchairs of faded chintz, more leaded windows looking out onto the splendid gardens and a dog’s bed made of tweed, into which the Labrador flopped with an air of having had more than his day’s worth of exercise.
Three people were sitting around a low table laden with tea things and what looked like a home-baked Victoria sponge. In an armchair sat an elderly woman with thin white hair, who was dressed in navy blue and pearls. Her hands were trembling so much that Strike wondered whether she had Parkinson’s disease. A couple in their late forties were sitting side by side on the sofa. The balding man’s heavy eyebrows and prominent Roman nose gave him the look of an eagle. His tie, unless he was pretending to be something he wasn’t, which Strike thought unlikely in this context, proclaimed that he’d once been a Royal Marine. His wife, who was plump and blonde, was wearing a pink cashmere sweater and a tweed skirt. Her bobbed hair was tied back in a velvet bow, a style Strike hadn’t seen since the eighties, while her ruddy, broken-veined cheeks suggested a life led largely out of doors.
‘M’wife, Barbara,’ said Colonel Graves, ‘our daughter, Phillipa, and her husband, Nicholas.’
‘Good morning,’ said Strike.
‘Hello,’ said Mrs Graves. Phillipa merely nodded at Strike, unsmiling. Nicholas made no sound or gesture of welcome.
‘Siddown,’ said the colonel, gesturing Strike to an armchair opposite the sofa. He himself lowered himself slowly into a high-backed chair with a grunt of relief.
‘How d’you take your tea?’ Mrs Graves asked.
‘Strong, please.’
‘Good man,’ barked the colonel. ‘Can’t stand weak tea.’
‘I’ll do it, Mummy,’ said Phillipa, and indeed, Mrs Graves’ hands were trembling so much, Strike thought it advisable she didn’t handle boiling water.
‘Cake?’ the unsmiling Phillipa asked him, once she’d passed his tea.
‘I’d love some,’ said Strike. Sod the diet.
Once everyone had been served, and Phillipa had sat down again, Strike said,
‘Well, I’m very grateful for this chance to talk to you. I understand this can’t be easy.’
‘We’ve been assured you’re not a sleaze hound,’ said Nicholas.
‘Good to know,’ said Strike drily.
‘No offence,’ said Nicholas, though his manner was that of a man who didn’t particularly mind being offensive and might even pride herself on it, ‘but we thought it important to check you out.’
‘Do we have your assurance we’re not going to be dragged into the tabloids?’ said Phillipa.
‘You do seem to make a habit of popping up there,’ said Nicholas.
Strike could have pointed out that he’d never given the press an interview, that most of the journalistic interest he’d aroused had been due to solving criminal cases, and that it was hardly within his control whether the press became interested in his investigation. Instead he said,
‘At the moment, the risk of press interest is slight to non-existent.’
‘But you think it might all be dragged up?’ Phillipa pressed him. ‘Because our children don’t know anything about all this. They think their uncle died of natural causes.’
‘It was so long ago now, Pips,’ said Mrs Graves. Strike thought she seemed a little nervous of her daughter and son-in-law. ‘It’s been twenty-three years. Allie would have been fifty-two now,’ she added quietly, to nobody.
‘If we can stop another family going through what we did,’ said Colonel Graves loudly, ‘we’ll be delighted. One has an obligation,’ he said, with a look at his son-in-law that, in spite of his cloudy eyes, was pointed. Turning stiffly in his chair to address Strike he said, ‘What d’yeh want to know?’
‘Well,’ said Strike, ‘I’d like to start with Alexander, if that’s all right.’
‘We always called him Allie, in the family,’ said the colonel.
‘How did he become interested in the church?’
‘Long story,’ said Colonel Graves. ‘He was ill, yeh see – but we didn’t realise f’ra long time. What did they call it?’ he asked his wife, but it was his daughter who answered.
‘Manic depression, but they’ve probably got another fancy word for it, these days.’
Phillipa’s tone suggested scepticism of the psychiatric profession and all its ways.
