Mimi's Ghost (42 page)

It was an exercise that brought on a mild and not unpleasant sense of vertigo, like the night he and Mimi had lain on the beach in Ostia and looked for patterns in the stars, or when one took on some puzzle that was too difficult, and yet clearly did have a solution somewhere. And the agony of it was precisely that, that it
did
have a solution. If it didn't, he might have just let be and given up.

The idea that Bobo, having run off with his mistress, might have been responsible for Paola and Kwame's deaths brought something more than the ghost of a smile to Mimi's face.

And had the handwriting of that billet-doux ever been compared with his wife's? Could he himself count on having recognised it as Paola's writing, given that she wrote so very little?

There were circumstances in which it was not unreasonable to suppose that Paola might have made that call. If, for, example, Kwame had already told her that Morris had done it. To cover for him. Though of course he had never been able to wring from the police whether the call had been made by a man or a woman.

The hypothesis that he might have made the call himself in some somnabulistic post-homicidal trance brought on a dizziness that was almost exactly hilarity and horror reflecting each other down the interminable hall of distorting mirrors that was Morris Duckworth's mind.

An invigorating thought.

Until, far on in the early hours, it occurred to Morris to let be. He would never marshal these facts into anything like coherence. In the end this was no more of a defeat than the one almost everybody had to face when it came to understanding their lives. No more of a defeat than the one Fendtsteig would be savouring for many and many a year to come. Yes, Morris thought, yes, he would accept his mere humanity and live in the only way one could: from day to day, from hand to mouth.

Tour hand to my mouth,' he told the painting.

The candle guttered. Dying, then flickering to life again, the flame definitely stirred the fingers of a white hand on the blue velvet of her robe, lifted the corners of her lips.

‘Morri,' she said. ‘Morri!'

And Morris knew it was enough. He had reached a point of rest. He need do no more.