THEIR REAPPEARANCE so soon after their previous visit seemed to make Sarah Astell nervous. Her thin hand clasped her chest after she had opened the front door, as though to calm an erratic heartbeat. 'What is it this time, Inspector? If you came to see my husband, he's upstairs.'
'Actually,' Rafferty replied. 'It was you we came to see.'
'Me?' Her gaze flickered anxiously between them. Her attempted smile faltered, and she stood back. 'Perhaps you had better come in?'
As he made to follow her through the hall, Rafferty paused as he recognised a profile amongst the gallery of photographs in the hall. 'I didn't realise your father knew the author Nat Kingston, Mrs Astell.'
'They were friends for years,' she told them briefly. 'Of course, they were both artists of a sort.'
'We actually m
