REDEMPTION : Extract

Mrs Anthony took some time to come to the door; when it opened, they saw a frail old lady backing her wheelchair away. Lloyd introduced himself and Judy, and they were shown into a small, neat living room.

'Do you remember Mrs Wheeler coming to see you on Christmas Eve?' Judy asked, raising her voice slightly, enunciating clearly.

Lloyd suppressed a smile as Mrs Anthony regarded Judy with a bleak eye. 'I am almost eighty years old,' she said. 'I sometimes have to use this wheelchair. I would prefer to be thirty-five and walking about, like you, but I do assure you that neither of these disadvantages affects my hearing, my acumen or my memory.'

Judy's face grew pink. 'Oh - I do apologise if I gave the impression-'

'You did.'

It gave Lloyd just a little perverse pleasure to the efficient Sergeant Hill so firmly on the carpet.

'I'm sorry,' Judy said.

'And now that we have established that I can remember all the way back to the day before yesterday, what did you want to know?'

'We'd like to know what time she got here,' Lloyd asked.

'Eight twenty-five. Between then and half-past, that is,' said Mrs Anthony, without hesitation.

'Can you be sure about that?' Judy asked.

'What was the point of asking me if you don't think I can tell the time?' demanded Mrs Anthony.

'How did she seem?' Lloyd asked.

'Not her usual self.'

'You know her quite well?' asked Judy.

'If I didn't, I wouldn't know what her usual self was, would I?' snapped the old lady. 'I've known her all her life.'

Lloyd decided that he didn't really like witnessing Judy being eaten for breakfast after all.