“Aren’t you meant to be at Selfridges?” Carver asked his sister-in-law.
“Not till noon today,” was her reply. “We’ve plenty of time.” She shut the door behind her and came to them in the dining area. She kept her attention fixed on her brother-in-law as she said, “Maman and Papá are worried they’ve not heard from you. Papá especially, and we don’t want him worried. So I told them I’d seek you out to make certain you were coping with everything.” She lowered her gaze. “We all thought you might come to Hampstead, Ross. You must know that.” She raised her eyes and looked at him, then at Barbara, then at him again. She went on with, “All of us loved her, Ross.”
Barbara reckoned she would need a backhoe to excavate the conversation for the hidden meanings in what the young woman was saying. She also wanted to ask her how she’d known to find her brother-in-law here. There seemed only one way that she could have known: he’d told her. This suggested she’d rung him or he’d rung her. But this also suggested she’d been with him when Barbara had phoned him the previous night about wanting another chat. If that was the case, what was going on between them at the moment was performance art.
She considered Nkata’s report about Rosalba Bontempi. She’d claimed that both her sister and Carver had mutually wanted to divorce. So once again it was an either/or situation. Either Rosalba had lied to Nkata about the upcoming divorce or Ross Carver had lied to Barbara.
Ross said, “I should have phoned them, at least. I will do.”
“And what will you say?”
“That’s the question. I don’t know what to say.”
“They don’t blame you for what happened between you and Teo. The divorce. All that. They know things change between people. You and Teo were young. You hardly had any time to explore the world before you and she decided to be a couple. You’d not met other people or tried other ways of being together. I think you know what I mean.”
She certainly meant something, Barbara thought. What she couldn’t sort out was whether Carver read between the lines of what she was telling him. She had the distinct feeling that he did.
He said to Rosie, “The police have taken Teo’s sculptures.”
“Whyever?”
“For testing.”
Rosie directed her gaze to the credenza where the bronzes had stood. “Do they think one of the bronzes was used for something?”
“Forensics are looking at everything that could have been used as a cosh,” Barbara told her.
Rosie said, “I’m surprised she never got rid of them, all things considered.”
“What things would those be?” Barbara asked her.
“When people are divorcing . . . ?” Rosie lifted one shoulder. She made the movement look elegant. “Or when they’re ending a relationship? Mementoes can cause pain, can’t they. The sculptures were mementoes. They represented a connection to Ross that she no longer wanted.”
“So to follow that line of thinking, if she kept the sculptures, it was owing to her wanting to hang on to a connection to Mr. Carver?”
“I’m merely suggesting how things could have been under different circumstances, not how they are.”
Barbara scoffed inwardly. She found herself idly wondering how strong Rosie was because there was a disturbing undercurrent to everything she said and the way she said it, and Winston had reported the same reaction to her.
She said to Ross, “Her mobile’s still missing.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” was his reply.
“We’re going to need its number. I presume you have it.”
“Of course.” He recited it and Barbara took it down in her notebook. Afterwards, she looked up and said, “You didn’t take it?”
“I wouldn’t have done. I had no reason to.”
“Are you certain it was here when you spent the night?”
“Completely. It was recharging on—”
“Ross, you didn’t tell me you spent the night,” Rosie cut in. “Why did you spend the night?”
“Teo couldn’t remember what had happened. She’d been sick. She was dizzy. I didn’t want to leave her alone. I was worried about her.”
“I would have come to be with her if you’d phoned. Or Maman would have done. I don’t understand it. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s ‘going on.’？” Ross sounded testy.