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his body fluids had seeped out all over the floor." Her mouth tightened in sudden distaste and she blinked as the flash of the camera stung her eyes. "Afterwards, when the police told me that he'd died of self-neglect and malnutrition, I kept wondering why he'd made no attempt to save himself. It wasn't just that I found him beside my freezer-" she gestured unhappily towards the window-"everyone's so affluent on this estate that even the trash cans have perfectly edible food in them."
    "Any ideas?"
    "Only that he was so weak by the time he found my garage that he hadn't the energy to do more than crawl into the corner and hide himself."
    "Why would he want to hide?"
    She studied him for a moment. "I don't know. But if he wasn't hiding, why didn't he try to attract my attention? The police think he must have entered the garage on the Saturday, because his only opportunity to get inside was when I went to the shops that afternoon and left the doors unlocked for half an hour." Insofar as she was capable of showing emotion, she did. Her hand flickered nervously towards her mouth before she remembered the camera and dropped it abruptly. "I found his body on the following Friday and the pathologist estimated he'd been dead five days. That means he was alive on the Sunday. I could have helped him if he'd called out and let me know he was there. So why didn't he?"
    "Perhaps he was afraid."
    "Of what?"
    "Being turned over to the police for trespassing."
    She shook her head. "Certainly not that. He had no fear of the police or of prison. I understand he was arrested quite regularly. Why should this time have been any different?"
    Deacon made shorthand notes on his pad to remind himself of the nuances of expression that crossed her face as she talked about Billy. Anxiety. Concern. Bewilderment even. Curiouser and curiouser. What was Billy Blake to her that he could inspire emotion where her husband couldn 't? "Maybe he was just too weak to attract your attention. Presumably the pathologist can't say if he was conscious on the Sunday?"
    "No," she said slowly, "but I can. There was a bag of ice cubes in the freezer. Someone had opened it, and it certainly wasn't me, so I presume it must have been Billy. And one corner of the garage had been urinated in. If he was strong enough to move around the garage, then he was strong enough to bang on the connecting door between the garage and my hall. He must have known I was there that weekend because he could have heard me. The door's not thick enough to block out sound."
    "What did the police make of that?"
    "Nothing," she said. "It made no difference to the pathologist's verdict. Billy still died of malnutrition whether through willful self-neglect or involuntary self-neglect."
    He lit another cigarette and eyed her through the smoke. "How much did the cremation cost you?"
    "Does the amount matter?"
    "It depends how cynical you believe the average reader to be. He might think you're being coy about the figure because you want everyone to assume you spent more."
    "Four hundred pounds."
    "Which is a great deal more than you would have given him alive?"
    She nodded. Click. "If I'd met him as a beggar in the street, I'd have thought I was being generous if I gave him five pounds." Click. Click. She glanced with irritation at Lisa, looked as if she were about to say something, then thought better of it. Her face took on its closed expression again.
    "You said yesterday that you felt you owed him something. What exactly?"
    "Respect, I suppose."
    "Because you felt he hadn't been shown any in life?"
    "Something like that," she admitted. "But it sounds ridiculously sentimental when it's put into words."
    He wrote for a moment. "Do you have a religion?"
    She turned away as another flash exploded in her eyes. "Surely she's taken enough by now?"
    Lisa kept the camera lens on her face. "Just a couple more shots with the eyes cast down, Amanda." Click. "Yes, that's really nice, Amanda." Click. "More compassion