‘Did Aidan talk to you about his personal life?’ Charlie asked.

‘Not really. Apart from jokingly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He once told me he had a stalker. When we were hanging his exhibition.’

Charlie tried not to look too eager.

‘Oh, he wasn’t worried about it or anything like that. He sounded almost flattered. He wasn’t being entirely serious, I don’t think.’

‘Do you remember anything else he said?’

Jan’s face creased in concentration. ‘Something about having to let her have her way with him because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was very tongue in cheek, though. I said something like, “It’s a hard life when you’re in demand,” and he laughed. He referred to fate, too—fate kept throwing them together, something like that.’

Not many people would accept a stalker as part of destiny’s grand plan, Charlie thought. Odd. ‘Can you remember his exact words?’ she asked.

Jan looked impatient, then tried to soften her expression to one of mock exasperation. ‘It was eight years ago. Of course I can’t.’

‘And he didn’t give his stalker a name?’

‘Nope. Sorry.’

‘You didn’t take any photos or anything, did you? Of the private view? You said you kept a record of all your exhibitions.’

‘That’s an idea. I always take pictures. Want me to dig out the file?’

‘Please.’ It wasn’t impossible that Mary Trelease or Martha Wyers or both of them might be in one or more of the photographs. And if they were? More evidence of a connection between the key players, but still nothing to indicate what they were players in, or how their individual stories fitted together. Had Martha and Mary been more than contemporaries at Villiers? Had they been friends?

Charlie recalled Mary’s expression when she’d said, ‘Not me.’ Had Aidan Seed killed Martha Wyers? Hanged her? You murder one woman, then, years later, pretend you’ve strangled her friend. No—too bizarre. And why choose hanging as a way of killing someone? Automatically, Charlie’s mind supplied an answer: to make it look like suicide.

‘Could Martha Wyers have been Aidan’s stalker?’ she asked, not expecting Jan to know the answer.

‘I’ve no idea. I suppose she could have been. Why?’ Jan had pulled a manila folder out of one of her desk drawers.

‘Martha published a novel before she died, Ice on the Sun. It’s about a woman who falls for a man she meets at a job interview and pursues—’

‘Oh, lordy.’ Jan’s mouth gaped open. ‘Aidan told me he first met his stalker-woman at a job interview. It only came back to me when I heard you say it. He definitely did. I remember asking if he thought she’d fixated on him because he had the job she wanted.’