She must have trusted Dennis more than I thought.
‘Did she ever tell you Bobby was abusive?’
‘Um … no, she didn’t.’ I sense his shock. So she hadn’t told him about the abuse. Dorothea had kept that secret right up until she died. Maybe they weren’t as close as Dennis is trying to make out.
‘How long ago did you first meet her? Did you say ten years ago?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ He whistles for Cady and she comes scooting over with Solly. He pats them both, gives them a biscuit and then they charge off again. He sighs again. ‘I always thought there was something so fundamentally sad about Dorothea.’
‘In what way?’
‘It just seemed ingrained in her, you know? Her childhood wasn’t good by all accounts. A violent father who ruled the roost and then, obviously, all the stuff with Bobby leaving her. She was a broken bird …’
A broken bird. I’ve heard that before.
‘No, she wasn’t,’ I find myself saying. ‘She was a strong, capable woman, Dennis. She was a badass.’
He laughs. ‘Okay then.’
‘No, really. The stuff she did.’
‘I know what she did,’ he says mildly with a fond smile.
No, you don’t, I think but I keep quiet. She helped Mum and me. She didn’t rush into another relationship or another marriage. She was strong. I don’t buy the ‘broken bird’ crap. It smacks of a man trying to put her down.
We walk back down the lane together and as we pass Dennis’s house he invites me in for a cup of tea. I’ve still got an hour or so before DI Shirley comes over so I accept. As he’s making tea and I’m perched on his sofa with the dogs at my feet, he says, ‘Thank you for your help last week when you thought my attacker was back. Did Harry tell you about the misunderstanding?’ He hands me a mug that feels heavy and thick-rimmed after Dorothea’s fine bone china.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking it. ‘Yes, he did. I got the feeling that there was more to it, but Harry kind of clammed up.’
Dennis takes a seat on the other end of the leather sofa and crosses his legs. ‘It was a shame I was out. I missed it all.’
We chat a bit more, about his daughter and grandchildren and the dogs. But as we talk something is niggling away at me and I can’t work out what it is.
‘Actually, Dennis …’ I lean forward to place my mug on the side table. ‘Do you mind if I use your loo?’
He looks up. ‘Um … sure. It’s upstairs, the first door on the right.’
‘Thanks so much.’ I leave the room. As I pass the bookshelf in the hallway, I notice again the books on contemporary artists. Why so many when he professes to have no interest in art? I then head up the stairs. The house has that air of an older man living alone: musty and old-fashioned with no feminine touches. The walls are painted a pale green and the carpet is brown, which reminds me of the chocolate limes my dad used to eat when I was a kid. Dennis said he’s lived here ten years but it looks as though the place hasn’t been decorated in a long time. When I reach the top of the stairs I head straight past the loo and tiptoe down the long corridor. Like Dorothea’s villa, Dennis’s house has high ceilings and Georgian sash windows but it’s not as grand. I poke my nose around the second door I come to and see it’s a spare bedroom. The next room is Dennis’s bedroom, sparsely furnished with the bed neatly made. I pop my head around every door I pass until I come to a small room at the end of the corridor. I don’t even know what I’m looking for, I’m just following my instincts really. I push the door open. It’s Dennis’s study and, by the looks of it, he’s currently working on something. He hasnotepads and Post-it Notes littered all over his desk. I remember him telling me he was a retired history teacher. And then, in a pile on his desk I notice the same proof copy ofA Woman in Turmoil?as Harry gave me. I pick it up and then exhale in surprise. There are four more of them stacked underneath. Why does Dennis have so many proof copies?
Unless …
Author copies.
Broken bird. That’s why it was so familiar when Dennis said it. He’d written it in this unauthorized biography enough times.
‘Ah,’ says a voice from behind me and I freeze. ‘I see you’ve discovered my secret.’
46
I step back in shock as Dennis walks further into the room.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,’ he says. He looks so benign, so grandfatherly standing there in his cable-knit cardigan, trousers and checked slippers, yet, for the first time ever, I feel afraid of him.
I shrink back against his desk. ‘Did … did Dorothea know who you were?’
He shakes his head sadly. ‘I thought you might work it out. The anagram. Sidney S. Crane. Dennis Creasy.’
Of course. I’ve always been rubbish at anagrams.
