Despite the warmth from the Aga and the efforts of my arms, I felt cold. What if it hadn’t been Griff and whoever it was had got in not through the door but through a window? I’d never checked they were secure. As soon as I’d sucked and scrubbed my hands clean, I got on to the phone. Farmers kept early hours, and Mr Hardy wouldn’t mind checking for me – and if he did, tough: it was part of his contract.
‘I did hear some banging, like, in the night. Hang on – I’ll have a quick shufti.’
Hang on? It would have made more sense to ring back in ten minutes. Mr Hardy had two speeds, snail and giant sloth. I had to risk leaving the phone to get out the first tray of scones. Even as I slid them on to the wire tray, I could his deep voice, made tinny by the phone.
‘Hi, Mr Hardy. Sorry about that – something in the oven.’ God, not a joke about buns, please! No, I was all right.
‘You’re an early riser, Lina, and no mistake. There’s folks missing the best part of the day –’
Any minute the next tray of scones would be ready. But it was useless to urge him. At long last he declared, ‘So maybe you’d better get up here when you’ve next a minute. Flapping in the breeze it is. That was the knocking I heard in the night, see – that window the far side from me.’
‘I’ll be up as soon as my bread’s ready for the oven,’ I said. Now I had wheels, life could speed up again. I could check the caravan and be back in time to retrieve my loaves.
Blu-tack! Whoever had broken in had Blu-tacked the seal back in place so nothing had seemed wrong. It was wrong enough now. The overnight wind and rain had loosened it, and now I had a soaked carpet to deal with. I stamped the towels on to it, and reported back to Mr Hardy.
‘And with Griff being in hospital I don’t know when I can get it repaired, ‘I concluded, handing over a few scones as a bribe.
‘You leave it to me,’ he said kindly. ‘Break-ins in my park? Never heard the like.’
Aidan didn’t need to pull rank on me, when we turned up together to collect Griff: the van or his Merc? Not a lot of competition. So I tailed the car, making sure that no one tailed us. He had gates like ours, which opened sweetly as he pressed a button somewhere. They twitched a bit when they saw the van was to be admitted too, but eventually I was in and parked on the side drive of his lovely Georgian house. Even as I lusted after the fanlight over the front door, Griff, terribly pale and clutching my arm very tightly for support, conceded with a thread of a voice that retiring to the sofa with a decent cup of tea might be the most sensible thing he could do.
At first Aidan assumed I would make it, but either because he didn’t trust me in his pride and joy or because he felt guilty at letting me get on with the work (less likely) or simply because Griff had fallen asleep, he eventually joined me. I was unpacking my baskets on his kitchen table.
‘Bread? Scones? Banana bread?’ His voice rose with each goodie I produced. ‘But that’s what shops are for.’ He shook his head in disbelief.
‘There’s some of his jam, too, and his favourite chutney. You know so much more about wine that I thought I’d leave that to you. But he mustn’t drink too much, not with his painkillers. In fact, he ought to cut down on alcohol anyway, Aidan. His liver.’
‘Oh, that must be like leather by now! I wouldn’t worry about that.’
‘I do worry. And so should you, if you care for him.’
‘Don’t start telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, young lady.’ He drew himself up to his full six feet and looked down his nose. No, Duke of Wellington he wasn’t. He hadn’t enough chin for a start.
‘Shhh. He’ll hear you. Now, there’s one more thing I want you to do. That van of ours. It’s become a liability. You’ve got a nice big garage. Can I pop it in there?’
‘A van!’ Not for the first time I wondered why of all his lovely gay friends Griff should have latched on to this particular man.
‘It’s got our name all over it. If the Kitty Gang are targeting Griff, then if his van disappears off the face of the earth, they’ll have to find another victim.’
‘And I suppose you’ll be doing athletic things on a bicycle.’
‘I shall hire a car. It’ll cost an arm and a leg, so I don’t want Griff to know. He’ll worry.’ He’d worry about me if he knew about the caravan break-in, which was a very good reason for not telling him. We still weren’t quite back to our old selves. Neither of us had had the courage to talk about our quarrel, even to mention my temporary absence. So I hadn’t had to talk to him about Lord Elham. I’d have loved to. Fey and camp Griff might be, but he knew his people, Aidan apart, that is, and if I could have brought the two men together, he’d have sussed out the situation in minutes. Even after his concussion, he was fly enough to accept without blink or question the folder I’d brought with me and slid into his hand. And I’d bet all the china in Bossingham Hall he’d find somewhere to hide it without letting on even to Aidan what it was.
After the big heavy van, it felt quite weird to drive the little Ka I’d hired in Ashford. It was so light and sounded so different – no heavy diesel engine throbbing away, I suppose, though the sound insulation wasn’t quite as good as I’d have expected. As for paying for it, I wasn’t robbing Griff. I was using money from what he insisted was our investment account. Investment? Well, keeping your skin intact might just qualify. I wasn’t so sure about using the van to nip across to Bossingham, though. That seemed a bit dodgy, morally speaking.
But it turned out to be a business trip – of sorts – after all.
Lord Elham greeted me like one of his long lost cousins, if not his daughter. ‘Come in, come in. How’s the car?’
‘I had to hire one. I left it at the end of your track.’
‘Come and have a drink. Have you eaten? Something more traditional? Beef and tomato? Chicken and mushroom?’
‘Is that really all you eat? Pot Noodles?’ Hell, I’d only forgotten the salmon and stuff, hadn’t I? Perhaps his memory was too dodgy to have remembered, too.
I seemed to be in luck. ‘Highly nutritious! Meat for protein, vegetables for vitamins, noodles for carbohydrate. Plenty of variety. No need to cook. Bingo. Spot on.’
I wasn’t sure that Griff or Iris for that matter would agree. ‘Don’t you have a kitchen, then?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a kitchen, all right! Bit of a tip. Quite interesting in its own way, but a bit of a tip.’ He kept us hovering in the entrance hall.
I might as well risk it. ‘I suppose I couldn’t see it? Background, you know.’
Shrugging, he said, ‘Walk this way.’ Oh, the old joke – a weird set of John Cleese funny walks.
I followed more sedately, keeping my eyes peeled. All the closed doors I passed made me feel like that woman who married Bluebeard and made the fatal mistake of asking him to open them. No wonder he didn’t want to ferry his meals this far.
Or – my God – cook them in this kitchen!
This wasn’t the Country Life high-ceilinged copper-saucepanned affair I’d taken afternoon tea in. This was a much more ordinary room, with a lower ceiling and furniture and fittings straight from the nineteen forties or fifties: Griff would have known. And it was filthy. I don’t mean someone had forgotten to wipe it down after cooking – the table, stove, draining board and so on. I mean the stove was encrusted. The sink was stacked high with saucepans. Not a single surface was clear either of crockery or of decayed food.
Trying not to gag, I said mildly, ‘I can see why you wouldn’t want to cook in here. Unless it was cleaned up a bit? I mean, as a room it’s pretty interesting.’
‘Don’t let on, for God’s sake!’
‘Who to?’
‘Those English Heritage chappies of course. And chappesses – they were far worse. You know what the miserable bitches insisted? That I open the house to the public! My home. Swarmed over by the world and his wife.’
Thank goodness I’d kept quiet about my visit. ‘Why did they want that?’
‘Want? Demand
ed! Said I wouldn’t get the money if I didn’t. For the roof, of course,’ he explained, just as irritated as my maths teachers used to be when equations did my head in.
‘You mean they paid for it?’ No wonder they wanted something in return.
‘Only half of it! I had to fork out for the rest myself! Bloody trustees,’ he added mysteriously. ‘So now I have to have Joe and Josephine Public here all hours of the night and day.’
My recollection was that he admitted them something like four hours a day and not many days of the year. I was about to point this out when I saw a lovely little blue and white egg-cup, standing forlorn amongst all the rubbish. I pounced, cradling it in my hand. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
He peered at it, then at me, as if I’d expressed delight at a dog turd.
I turned it over, pointing. ‘See the mark? Spode.’
‘Filthy.’
‘Easy to clean it up and make it presentable.’ I wasn’t quite sure how, but it was printed with the bird section from the border of the Indian Sporting series, and would more than pay for the day’s hire car.
‘Have it.’
‘I couldn’t possibly. It’s worth too much.’
‘Nothing’s worth anything if you don’t want it and don’t know how to get rid of it. I told you, have it. It’s yours. No argument.’ As I tucked it in my rucksack, he produced a charming smile. ‘There, that didn’t hurt much, did it?’
‘No, but –’ I swallowed the rest of what I meant to say. I’d make it up to him by getting him a little microwave and introduce him to the slightly more nutritious concept of TV meals for one. ‘You know, you ought to clean this up a bit. Rats. Plus you’d make a few more bob on other stuff you might find.’
‘I could do with a few bob. The DSS don’t give me much.’
‘DSS!’
‘That’s right. How else am I to live? I don’t own any of this now, you know. Now I’ve put everything right, the trustees have taken it on. Bloody kites. Damned hyenas. I just live in this corner, grace and favour, they say. Don’t own anything any more. So it’d be nice to diddle them, wouldn’t it? How, that’s the question?’
‘I might have the odd contact,’ I admitted cautiously. And truthfully. Kitchen stuff wasn’t really our line. But there were specialists who’d dribble at the sight of that enamel bread bin. And the wooden plate racks. They didn’t do anything for me, but who knew what I’d find if I mined underneath all that mouldy rubbish. Black Death, maybe. It’d be a job for gloves and a facemask. Lots of bin liners. Boiling water. I might. I just might. It’d be more satisfying, after all, than cleaning up Griff’s genteel spills.
‘OK. Spot of lunch,’ he announced.
Just being in here and touching the egg-cup were enough to put me off food, even Pot Noodles, until I’d washed my hands. ‘Is there a bathroom I could use?’
‘Of course there’s a bathroom! This is a civilised country, my girl. Don’t use thunder boxes here, for God’s sake. Out in the yard. No! Hang on. No Joe Public sniffing around today? Right. You might as well use one of the state shithouses. No, not one of the old two-seaters – the ones they keep for visitors. Follow me.’
Not arguing – I didn’t fancy using his loo if it was in the same state as the kitchen – I followed him along the corridor leading to the main body of the house. He tapped in the simplest security code, as if he’d had to humour his trustees by having one but cocked a snook by choosing a doddle any burglar would suss out. Well, 1234 didn’t sound like rocket science, even to me.
So here we were, the other side of the green baize door, but not in a corridor I recognised. Not that I’d have let on if I had seen something familiar, of course. Here the pictures seemed pretty ordinary; the display cabinets were full of stuff I’d have loved to pick over, just crammed in, willy-nilly. The lighting was so poor I’d have been hard put to identify anything. But I wasn’t here to peer and covet. I was here to see if anything rang any bells – and yes, to use a loo.
‘You know what I’ve always wanted to do?’ I heard myself saying. ‘Those “hidden” doors in posh bedrooms. I’ve always wanted to go through one to find what’s the other side.’
‘Would you get bigger or smaller?’
‘Why should I do either?’
He sighed. ‘Alice, of course.’
‘Alice?’
‘You’ve never read Alice in Wonderland? Or Through the Looking Glass? My dear girl, where were you educated?’ He sounded like an uncanny echo of Griff, talking about tea, the day this whole thing started.
I wasn’t about to tell him about Iris and the rest of my upbringing – in any case, up-dragging would be a better way to describe it. ‘I’ll put it on my list,’ I said.
‘There must be a copy somewhere – I’ll look it out for you before you leave. As for the doors, let’s find a bedroom and you can see for yourself.’
Yes! But instead I asked, ‘Do you have many books?’
‘Hundreds of the buggers. Oh, those with the best bindings are in the library of course. Tooled leather bindings, that sort of thing. Some are fake, of course – just fronts glued together on a shelf that’s really a door. You could have a look at that if you wanted. Step through it. So long as you promise not to get any smaller.’
Chapter Twenty-One
‘You’ve been in that huge, rambling, isolated place with a strange man, all by yourself, without telling anyone where you were! You must have been off your head, Lina – mustn’t she?’ Marcus was almost squeaking in disbelief.
It was nothing to my squeak when he’d turned up on the doorstep, at exactly the same time as Tony. So much for a sexy evening. They got on so well they could have managed without me, except that I was cooking supper, which they were now waiting for, drinking Beck’s from bottles while I toiled. Griff would have danced round producing, with a twiddle here and a tweak there, a pretty and a tasty meal. I was relying on the recipes he’d dictated to me as he cooked them: spelling had never been my strongest point, and I sometimes I couldn’t tell whether I needed a teaspoon or a tablespoonful of something. And with ginger or chilli I reckoned it mattered.
‘It’s certainly not the safest thing to do. Especially if Bossingham’s a mobile black spot. And without telling anyone – you really were putting yourself at risk. Look, I’ve got some leaflets back at the station about how to take care of yourself – the Suzy Lamplugh Trust –’
‘It’s all right. Lord Elham’s no problem. He’s a noble, for heaven’s sake.’ And, though I certainly wasn’t letting on to Tony, maybe my dad. ‘I told you all about him,’ I hissed at Marcus, who at last seemed to get the message and shut up.
‘Noblesse doesn’t always oblige, Lina.’
‘But he’s lent me a book –’
‘Just to get you to go back again.’
‘Oh, I’m going back all right. There’s two-thirds of the house to explore yet. He’s asked me back for lunch tomorrow.’ More Pot Noodles. Nostalgia was one thing, but if they’d been lampreys, I’d definitely have been surfeited. Or was that music? My bloody memory!
Either for my benefit or Tony’s, Marcus heaved an obvious sigh of relief. ‘Well, you won’t be able to go, will you? You’ll be otherwise engaged, Lina.’
I sat up very straight. ‘I don’t do lies. Not unless I have to,’ I conceded.
‘This has what Griff would call the virtue of being the truth,’ Marcus crowed. ‘Folkestone, Lina – have you forgotten Folkestone?’
‘You’d have to forgive her – it’s not all that memorable,’ Tony laughed.
‘It is if you’ve got a gig there. The Grand Hotel. Doors open to the public at 9.30, remember. That’s why I came round. To offer to help you set up.’
I didn’t slap my face. But I plonked my hands on it hard enough to remind me of the last time I got cross with myself. ‘No van,’ I said. ‘I’ve put it in what you might call a place of safety.’ I smiled across at Tony.
‘Ah. Hence that nice silver Ka I saw earlier. Where is
it now? Triple-locked in the garage? So how will you manage?’
‘Pack carefully. Hell, I might really have messed up. How on earth could I forget a fair?’
Marcus said kindly, ‘Easy enough when you were worried about Griff.’
I stared. ‘How did you know about Griff?’
‘The grapevine. The girl in the village shop, actually, where I got those.’ He pointed to some tulips, which already looked as if they’d got bad headaches, adding quickly, ‘According to her, you should have pierced them with a pin, just below the flower. And then put a teaspoon of sugar in the water.’
Bother flower arranging. The girl on the checkout. That’d be Shaz, the one who’d made her dad give me a lift to the farm. Had someone found out from her where I was staying? She wasn’t the sort of girl who’d even heard of Griff’s theory that the least you said about anything to anyone at any time the better. If the person asking for me had been clutching a convincing-looking bag, she’d only have got her dad to give him a lift too, wouldn’t she? I’d better talk to her. Now. Londis would be open till ten. I stared at the vegetables lying chopped, all ready for their stir-fry. Could I think of an excuse to nip out? If only I smoked. But there was no way either of these lads would let me walk even that far unaccompanied. I wouldn’t mind an escort, come to think of it, though it wasn’t anything like dark yet. But I just didn’t want them in the shop with me. What would curl them up to see me buy? I nipped up to the bathroom, returning looking as flustered and embarrassed as I could.
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know,’ I insisted as we set out. ‘Just tell yourself you’re going for a nice stroll on a pleasant summer evening. Or it might still be spring. You could even pop into the Rose and Crown and set up a round. We might do better to eat there, come to think of it. I’m no Delia, remember. Not even Jamie’s Jools.’
‘No way. Not after we’ve psyched ourselves up for whatever it is. Come on, Lina, even you can’t ruin a stir-fry.’
Drawing the Line Page 19