‘For what?’

‘I lost her her job. It’s a long story, one I’m not going to tell you. It doesn’t show either of us in a good light.’

‘You mean her job at the Spilling Gallery?’

‘What does it matter?’ Mary asked warily.

A woman with a lot of boundaries, thought Charlie. Too many for life to be easy for her. ‘I just wondered. That’s where Ruth worked before she worked for Aidan Seed.’

Charlie had never seen a person’s face shake before, but Mary’s did. It was as if she’d suffered an internal electric shock. ‘Ruth . . . Ruth works for Aidan Seed?’ She tucked her hair behind her ear, repeating the action, three, four times.

‘They also live together,’ said Charlie. ‘As a couple.’

All the colour drained from Mary’s face. ‘That’s not true. Ruth lives alone. In the lodge house at Blantyre Park. Why are you lying?’

‘I’m not. I don’t understand. Why does it matter? You say you don’t know Aidan.’

‘My picture. I gave Ruth my picture.’ She bit her lip. ‘Where are my cigarettes? I need a cigarette.’ She made no attempt to look for them. Her eyes were blank, moving to and fro, not settling on anything for long. ‘What’s Aidan Seed done? I need to know. Why are the police after him?’

Not knowing if it would prove to be the key that unlocked everything or a disastrous error, Charlie said, ‘As far as we know, Aidan’s harmed nobody. But he’s telling us different. He’s saying he hurt someone, badly, and he says that person was you.’

Mary’s chin jutted out. Charlie guessed she had resolved to show no more emotion after her brief lapse. Another shock, then.

Charlie took a step towards her. ‘Mary, believe me, I know how odd this sounds. Aidan Seed came to us voluntarily, wanting to confess to a crime. He described you—your appearance, where you live, your work . . .’

Mary wrapped her arms around herself, hugged herself tightly.

In for a penny, thought Charlie. ‘He seems to have got hold of the idea that he killed you,’ she said.

‘Not me.’ Mary let her head fall back, then straightened up, her eyes locking on Charlie’s. ‘Not me.’

5

Monday 3 March 2008

I’m cutting glass when I hear footsteps on the path outside. I look up, see a man’s face through the window. I don’t recognise him. Aidan stops what he’s doing. His foot is on the pedal of the mitre machine, but he doesn’t push it down. Normally he stops work only when he has to, when a customer is standing in front of him, and to pretend not to have noticed for a second longer would be too rude even for Aidan to get away with. A lot of the people we frame for dislike him, but they don’t go elsewhere. When I first started here, he told me, ‘You can be friendly to clients if you want to, but friendliness takes time. Your job, our job, is to protect the art people bring in. Remember that. Think of a picture as being in danger until it’s properly framed. Protection is at the heart of picture-framing. That’s why we do it—it’s not for decoration.’