Black Valley Read Online Free PDF Page A

way, been
clingy, suffocating, unable to let her daughter grow up and go out into the big, wild world?
    There was a knock at the door.
    For a moment, the image of the woman, the cave and the thread that Jess had seen the previous night just before she fell asleep came back into her mind. She’d learned, over the years, not
to dismiss such passing thoughts. They were messages, codes, there to tell us something, as Freud had noted long ago.
    Let Elinor feel her way back to safety, away from the minotaur, she told herself, rather than leading her down to it.
    When Elinor came in, she looked dejected. She barely acknowledged Jess; simply gave her a quick nod as she took off her mac. She hung the mac on the hat stand near the door, then walked over to
the couch. Jess had opened the window a crack – and turned the heating up slightly in the room – in readiness for her.
    Jess went over and sat down in the chair behind the couch.
    There was a silence. During it, Jess cleared her head of all her thoughts. Well, no, not cleared them exactly, but tried to watch them float by, without intervening, as the images passed: Rose,
and her tears for her father; Nella, lying in bed with Gareth, missing her lessons; Bob, getting off a train somewhere, his mobile clamped to his ear; the windscreen wipers that needed changing.
They all filed by, one by one, and she let them go. It wasn’t hard to do; it was a pleasure, a joy even, to leave them all to their own devices while she got on with the job in hand, which
was to attend to her client.
    Elinor leaned over and opened the window a little wider. But not, Jess noticed, as wide as she had before. Then she lay down on the couch and gazed out at the tree outside. Eventually, she
spoke.
    ‘I did try to go down to the studio last night.’
    ‘The studio?’
    Jess pictured a room cluttered with painting paraphernalia. Elinor’s private zone.
    ‘It’s separate from the house, at the end of the garden. That’s where I found my mother’s body that day,’ Elinor went on. ‘It was no good, though. I
couldn’t go in.’
    She passed a hand across her forehead, then kneaded the skin over her temples. She had beautiful hands, Jess noticed, long and slim with tapering fingers. Artist’s hands.
    ‘I don’t know what to do. Ever since . . .’ Her voice trailed off. ‘I just can’t seem to get back on track.’ She put her hand down from her face, and began to
fidget with her scarf. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t try and work in the evening. It stops me sleeping.’
    She paused, as if expecting advice, but Jess didn’t voice an opinion.
    ‘The thing is, I can’t seem to find time during the day.’ Elinor sighed. ‘There are so many interruptions. Isobel comes round, always fussing about this or that, stuff to
do with the estate – should she do up the house in Italy and rent it out or put it on the market straight away? Why can’t I help with it all?’
    Jess waited for Elinor to tell her who Isobel was, but she didn’t. She seemed to assume that she already knew, which was a little odd.
    ‘And then there’s this bloody policewoman calling to ask me all sorts of stupid questions.’ Elinor sighed again. ‘I really wish she’d let it go, give us some
peace.’
    There was another silence. Jess waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. Eventually, she prompted her.
    ‘A policewoman, you say?’
    ‘She’s nice enough, I suppose, but she seems a bit dense. She doesn’t seem to understand that the painting was worth an awful lot of money. It’s not surprising that
someone would . . . you know.’ Elinor’s voice trailed off for a moment, then resumed. ‘But she can’t see that. She obviously knows nothing about art whatsoever.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘I suppose she’s just doing her job,’ Elinor continued after a while. ‘I mean, we all want to find the person who killed my mother.’ She paused. ‘But the way
this woman goes on, you’d think it was one of