As she stared at the child’s face, Fry suddenly realized how extraordinarily beautiful Luanne Mullen was. She wasn’t the type to fall into a gooey heap every time she saw some unprepossessing infant with jowls like Winston Churchill. Not at all. Most babies were ugly as sin, except to the poor benighted parents, who couldn’t see the reality in front of them because their eyes were glued shut with bewilderment and exhaustion. But not Luanne. Churchill had never looked like this. In fact, Luanne Mullen was the most beautiful child she’d ever seen.

Then Fry was struck by the contrast between Luanne and her father. Not that Brian was repulsive, exactly, but he was fair-haired, angular and pale. Luanne, on the other hand, had black hair – so black that it was startling in a child of her age. Her eyes were dark, too, like little pools of black ink.

And there was another thing – the child’s skin was surely several shades more Mediterranean than Brian’s English pallor. So what about the mother? Well, there she was – blonde hair, showing light brown at the roots. And green eyes.

Of course, it was perfectly possible that the couple had produced a child who looked like that. English people weren’t exactly pure-bred Anglo-Saxons, after all. They were mongrels to a man, a mixture of Celts and Vikings, Saxons and Normans, and more exotic arrivals. In the North West of England, almost everyone had an Irish migrant or two lurking in their family tree. This child’s conception might simply have thrown up the genes of some Gaelic or Huguenot ancestor. Or her looks could result from a more recent influence – a Jewish refugee grandfather, or a Middle Eastern immigrant.

Yes, all of those things were possible. But none of them was the first thought that sprang to Fry’s mind when she looked at Luanne Mullen.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When Fry looked down at the A6 that afternoon, she didn’t know what to expect. A stagecoach with four grey horses, or two of them drawing a landau. Maybe Dick Turpin on Black Bess. Who knew what went on in this area?

She passed the Lowthers’ car standing on the drive. A white Rover, nice and clean. A couple of years old, though, so it was probably time Mr Lowther had a new one.

Once she was sitting in the Lowthers’ conservatory, Fry lifted the photograph of Brian and Lindsay and their three children off the corner table. No pussyfooting around any more. Not at this point.

‘Luanne is a very attractive child, Mrs Lowther,’ she said.

‘Yes, isn’t she?’

‘She doesn’t look a bit like either of her parents, though. Her colouring is very dark.’

‘It happens. There’s no accounting for genes.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Fry. ‘But you can account for the genes in this case, can’t you? Luanne is definitely your daughter’s child?’