“’E started dropping in, telling me all ’is problems… and ’e tells me ’ow ’e’s mad about this married woman. Fallen for ’is mate’s wife. On and on and on about ’ow ’ard ’er life is, and there’s me sitting there wiv a kid on me own. What about my ’ard life? She ’ad an ’usband, didn’t she? But no, I could tell I wasn’t gonna get nowhere wiv ’im unless she was out the way, so I fort, right, well, she’ll ’ave to go…

“She was no better lookin’ than I was,” muttered Janice, pointing at the picture of Joanna Hammond on the wall. “State of that fing on ’er face…

“So I looked ’er up in the phone book and I just went round ’er ’ouse when I knew ’er ’usband was at work. I used to ’ave this wig I wore to parties. Put that on, and me uniform, and a pair of glasses I used to ’ave, but I didn’t need. Rang the doorbell, told ’er I’d ’ad a tip-off about ’er domestic situation.

“People will always let a nurse in,” said Janice. “She was desperate to talk to someone. I got ’er good and emotional, cryin’ and all that. She told me about sleeping with Steve, and ’ow she fort she was in love wiv ’im…

“I made ’er a drink wiv latex gloves on. “’Alf of it was weedkiller. She knew, the moment she tasted it, but I grabbed ’er ’air from be’ind,” Janice mimed the motion in mid-air, “pulled ’er ’ead back, forced it down ’er fuckin’ throat. Oh yeah. Once she was on the floor, chokin’, I poured some more down, neat.

“’Ad to stay a while, to make sure she didn’t try an’ phone anyone. Once I knew she was too far gone to recover, I took off me uniform an’ left.

“It takes nerve,” said Janice Beattie, her color high and her eyes bright, “but act normal and people don’t see nothing strange… you just got to ’old your nerve. And maybe I wasn’t showy-looking when I was young, but that ’elped. I wasn’t the kind people remembered…

“Next day, near enough, I ’ad Steve crying ’is eyes out round my place. It was all going great,” said the woman who’d poured neat weedkiller down her rival’s throat, “I saw ’im loads after that, ’e was round my place all the time. There was somefing there between us, I could feel it.

“I never drugged ’im a lot,” said Janice, as though this was true evidence of affection. “Only enough to stop ’im going out, make ’im feel ’e needed me. I used to look after ’im really well. Once, ’e slept on my sofa, and I wiped ’is face for ’im, while ’e was asleep,” she said, and again, Strike thought of the kiss she’d given the dead Johnny Marks.

“But sometimes,” said Janice, with bitterness, “men fort I was the mumsy type and didn’t see me as anyfing else. I could tell Steve liked me, but I fort ’e might not be seeing me the right way, you know, wiv bein’ a nurse, and Kev always dragging round after me. One evening, Steve come over, and Kev was ’aving a tantrum, and Steve said, he thought ’e’d be off, let me look after Kev… and I could tell, I fort, you’re not gonna want me wiv a kid. So I fort, Kev needs to go.”

She said it as though talking about taking out the bins.

“But you gotta be careful when it’s your own kid,” said Janice. “I needed to get an ’istory going. ’E couldn’t just die, not after being perfectly ’ealthy. I started experimenting wiv stuff, I was finking, maybe a salt overdose, claim ’e did it on a dare or somefing. I started putting stuff in ’is food ’ere and there. Get ’im complaining to teachers about stomach aches an’ that, and then I’d say, “Oh, I know, I think it’s a bit of schoolitis’…”

“But then Margot examined him,” said Strike.

“But then,” repeated Janice slowly, nodding, “that hoity-toity bitch takes ’im into ’er surgery and examines ’im. And I knew she was suspicious. She asked me after, what drinks it was I’d given ’im, because the little bastard ’ad told ’er Mummy was givin’ ’im special drinks…

“Not a week later,” said Janice, twisting the old wedding ring on her finger, “I realize Steve’s going to see ’er about ’is ’ealf, instead of coming to see me. Next fing I know, Margot’s asking me all about Joanna’s death, out the back by the kettle, and Dorothy and Gloria were listening in. I said, ‘ ’Ow the ’ell should I know what ’appened?’ but I was worried. I fort, what’s Steve been telling ’er? ’As ’e said ’e finks there was somefing wrong wiv it? ’As someone said they saw a nurse leaving the ’ouse?

“I was getting worried. I sent ’er chocolates full of phenobarbital. Irene ’ad told me Margot ’ad ’ad freatening notes, and I’m not surprised, interfering bitch, she was… I fort, they’ll fink it’s ’ooever sent them notes, sent the chocolates…

“But she never ate ’em. She frew ’em in the bin in front of me, but after, I ’eard she’d taken ’em out the bin and kept ’em. And that’s when I knew, I really knew. I fort, she’s gonna get ’em tested…”

“And that’s when you finally agreed to go on a date with simple old Larry,” said Strike.

“’Oo says ’e was simple?” said Janice, firing up.

“Irene,” said Strike. “You needed access to concrete, didn’t you? Didn’t want to be seen buying it, I’d imagine. What did you do, tell Larry to take some and not mention it to anyone?”

She simply looked at him out of those round blue eyes that nobody who hadn’t heard this conversation could possibly mistrust.

“What gave you the idea of concrete?” Strike asked. “That rumor of the body in the foundations?”

“Yeah,” said Janice, finally. “It seemed like the way to stop the body smelling. I needed ’er to disappear. It was too near ’ome, what wiv ’er examining Kev, and asking me about Joanna, and keeping those chocolates. I wanted people to fink maybe the Essex Butcher got ’er, or the bloke ’oo sent the threatening notes.”

“How many times had you visited the Athorns before you killed Margot?”

“A few.”

“Because they needed a nurse? Or for some other reason?”

The longest pause yet ensued, long enough for the sun to slide out from a cloud, and the glass Cinderella coach to burn briefly like white fire, and then turn back into the tawdry gewgaw it really was.

“I sort of fort of killing them,” said Janice slowly. “I don’t know why, really. Just from the time I met ’em… they were odd and nobody ever went there. Those cousins of theirs visited once every ten years. I met ’em back in January, those cousins, when the flat needed cleaning out, to stop that man downstairs going to court… they stayed an hour and let ‘Clare’ do all the rest…

“Yeah, I just fort I might kill the Athorns one day,” she said, with a shrug. “That’s why I kept visiting. I liked the idea of watching an ’ole family die togevver, and waiting to see when people realized, and then it’d be on the news, probably, and I’d know what ’appened when everyone was gossiping, local…