‘You’ll show it to Connie, then?’
‘Yeah.’
Ray must have caught something in her voice. ‘Lili, you will show it to her – won’t you? I have been a detective for many years. I have a feeling about this. There’s something Connie isn’t telling you – I’m convinced of it.’
Lili stopped. That was what she’d thought too.
‘Show her the photo, Lili. If it isn’t them, then at least we’ve ruled them out and I can start another line of inquiry.’
Lili smiled. It was just what a police officer would say, although she couldn’t imagine what that other line of inquiry, as he put it, might be. She appreciated his generosity, though.
‘You’re leaving Connie’s, aren’t you?’
Lili opened the door and took one last look at the bedroom. She wouldn’t be back. ‘I have to.’
‘I understand. You know there’s a spare room here at my place, and the flat is still unoccupied.’
She caught the concern in Ray’s voice. Thinking of the flat above the shop, she asked, ‘How is Joseph?’
‘Oh, you know Joseph – he’s a survivor.’
She didn’t know Joseph, but she imagined that was a reference to his experiences on Corfu in the war years. Lili touched the ring on the chain around her neck. ‘Ray, you mentioned something about other lines of inquiry.’
‘Yes, I did,’ he said slowly. ‘But here’s the thing, I’ve got to be honest. I don’t know where to go from here.’
‘I do.’
‘You do?’
‘It’s Joseph.’
‘Joseph?’
‘Yes. This might be nothing, and just a coincidence, but it’s about the ring.’
‘What are you talking about, Lili?’
Lili told him that she’d discovered she had an identical ring to the one Joseph wore. She recounted bumping into Sarah, on her last hospital visit, and that Sarah had told her the band was one of a pair; Jewish betrothal rings once owned by Joseph’s father and mother, Sarah’s grandparents. Sarah had never seen the other until Lili showed her the ring.
‘I don’t know how my parents came by this ring. They may have just bought it somewhere, but it was my only possession, apart from the clothes I was wearing, when they found me.’
Lili walked down the stairs, still speaking to Ray on the phone, carrying her suitcase in one hand and Maisie’s small case balanced awkwardly in the crook of her arm.
‘That’s incredible. Why didn’t you say something before?’
Lili sighed down the phone as she reached the bottom of the stairs. Glancing into the lounge, she saw Connie rising from her seat. ‘There’s been a lot going on, Ray.’
Connie spotted Lili carrying her coat and suitcase to the door. ‘Are you leaving?’
‘What does it look like?’ Lili replied.
‘Pardon?’ Ray replied.
Lili shook her head in annoyance. ‘I wasn’t talking to you, Ray. Look, I’ve got to go.’ Ignoring Connie, Lili was already opening the front door. ‘Will you ask Joseph about his ring? Perhaps you could find out about Alena too.’
‘Who?’
‘Oh, that’s the other thing … he kept calling me Alena.’