“How long have you lived here? In London, I mean.”
“Twenty years. Or so.”
“Where did you come from? If you don’t mind me asking. Is that question all right? I’m never sure.”
“Portugal.”
“Beautiful country. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”
“You have to see it to believe it.”
Carol felt a pang of regret: Her last passport had expired in the eighties. Sure, she could travel now. Maybe a cruise. That’s what ladies of her age were supposed to do, but when she tried to picture it, it struck her as a prison on water. Would the entertainment be any better than the slam poets and ramshackle theater companies who used to give their ever-so-earnest performances at Bronzefield?
Elisa held up her phone and showed Carol a picture. “Ferragudo. My hometown.” Her eyes shone with pride.
Carol took the phone for a closer look. An idyllic fishing village, boats, pretty houses with terra-cotta roofs, the green watertwinkling in the bright sunlight. She felt suddenly aware that her time on Earth was finite. There was so much she’d never do now, so much she’d never see. “Lovely,” she said. “Why did you come here?”
“I don’t know.” Elisa took back her phone and gazed at Ferragudo. “I was young, looking for something, I guess.”
“Did you find it?”
“I got pregnant. It was very difficult for me. I had to work. Sometimes life just doesn’t go the way you expect it to.”
It was a neat summary. Carol had learned to do this over the years, to draw people’s pasts out of them. Give them the opportunity, and all people really wanted to talk about was themselves.
“I’ll be fifty next year,” Elisa said mournfully.
Carol tried not to get annoyed at someone so much younger than her talking as if her life was drawing to a conclusion. She had to remind herself that this wasn’t a podcast but an interrogation. “Were you vacuuming last week, Elisa?”
“What? I don’t know.”
“Just before Desmond was pushed off the roof, someone was vacuuming in the corridor. Was it you?”
Elisa blinked, running it through in her head. “No. We let the cleaner go this week. That wouldn’t have been me.”
“Where were you when the murder took place?”
“I would have been downstairs on the front desk, I’m sure.”
“And is there anyone who can verify that?”
“I’m sure there is. People saw me. You can ask around. So, you’re investigating the murder now, are you, Carol?”
“Only way to clear my name is to find the killer.”
“Who are your suspects?”
Carol took a moment. Whowereher suspects? She had a few, but perhaps now was the time to solidify them into some kind of list. “I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind.”
“Am I one?”
Carol smiled. “Of course.”
“Why would I kill Desmond?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Elisa rolled a pen back and forth on the desk. “Have you thought about Polly?”
