The bit of bun I was swallowing turned to rock in my throat. I didn’t need to hear any more. I dashed out, leaving my surprised friends with the bill, and spent a frantic hour running around the town trying to find out which police station Robert was being held at. I was too panic-stricken to think of taking the time-saving option of ringing around first. At last, on my third attempt the Desk Sergeant at Mildenhall Road station cautiously agreed that they might just have a Robert Winwood there and no, he hadn’t been released yet. At first he treated my stumbling attempt to tell him what Robert had really been doing in that garden with all the contempt he thought it richly deserved. I could almost see the words forming in a thought bubble above the Sergeant’s head. ‘Here we go, some bint of a girlfriend faking a nice little story,’ then as I insisted on repeating it and was obviously not going to stop until he’d found someone to listen to me properly, he said in a deeply resigned tone that he’d get a WPC to come and talk to me. Considering how quickly he vanished round the back as soon as she arrived I think his desire for a tea break was probably as much of a spur as my persistence.
The WPC was a dead ringer for the biology mistress at school - the one with rippling biceps and the nose that could have carved a joint - and if I hadn’t already made such a fuss I might have been tempted to leave Robert to it and do a runner. But underneath that hatchet exterior there beat a heart still female enough to be able to appreciate that there are reasons why, in a fit of temper, you might condemn your ex-boyfriend to spend a night in the cells. Such as he’d just told you he’d slept with your ex-best friend. It didn’t stop the lecture about wasting police time though. I nodded meekly, agreed docilely that I’d been stupid and assured her earnestly that I wouldn’t dream of ever doing it again.
Lecture over, the WPC got quite chatty as we were waiting for my statement to be typed up, even bringing me a cup of tea and a biscuit, so once we’d had a highly interesting chat about the perfidy of men in general - either she regularly acted as a shoulder to cry on or she had an extremely lively love-life - I asked how anybody had ever managed to jump to the incredible conclusion that Robert was some sort of sex pest. She cast her eyes up to the ceiling expressively. An over-zealous Sergeant, desperate to improve the clear-up rate, had leaped on the one vague description of the Prowler - male with dark hair which wasn’t terribly exclusive as far as general descriptions go - and had assumed that because Robert had moved a dustbin he must have been planning to stand on it so he could look through an upstairs window on the wild shenanigans going on inside.
The facts that it was a Victorian house with high ceilings and that Robert would have needed to have been over seven feet tall to see in a first-storey window, even when perched on a dustbin, or that the owners of the house were over seventy so the most exciting things he was likely to see were false teeth soaking in a glass, had escaped the Sergeant completely. All he was concerned about was the evident weakness of Robert’s story that he had been looking for his keys when they were in his pocket. Who was going to believe that nonsense about his finding them seconds before the police arrived? Then when I denied knowing Robert, he was so sure that he had his man that he was confident enough to tip the wink to a contact he had at the local paper. And the reporter, who was no mean slouch at his job, took no time at all in finding out which particular student was banged up in the nick. As he disliked students as a whole, thinking them idle, pot-smoking, unwashed layabouts who would be better occupied in holding down a proper job, and what’s more were always after his pretty daughter, he’d taken an almost gleeful delight in naming Robert as the person who was being questioned over a series of sexual offences, without troubling himself with any of the more obvious discrepancies in the theory.
It was so ludicrous it was laughable. I could imagine how Robert, with his ready sense of the ridiculous, would one day greatly enjoy retelling the story of how he’d been arrested. Perhaps not just at the moment though. ‘Is he very angry with me?’ I asked the WPC, slightly nervously.
She looked at me with raised brows. ‘Put it this way – you might like to think of applying for police protection,’ she said with only a glimmer of a smile. ‘He’d be annoyed enough about spending an unnecessary night in the cells - they aren’t very comfortable - but what seems to have sent him into orbit is missing an important appointment in London this morning.’
‘Appointment? This morning?’ I felt the first trickling of cold horror creeping down my spine. It could only be one thing, meeting the head of chambers where he was hoping to do his pupillage. ‘But he’s supposed to be going on Friday, I remember him telling me.’
The date, it turned out, had been changed and in the general crush and celebrations for Chris’s success last night Robert hadn’t got around to telling me. At that point he probably hadn’t thought it was any big deal. After all, he’d already been promised it was in the bag. This meeting was supposed to be a final dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s session, followed by a substantial lunch at the head of chambers’ club where everyone would agree that Robert was exactly the sort of rising young star they wanted for a dynamic chambers making itself fit for the twenty-first century. Only the rising young star never turned up because he was being questioned by the police, and his name was being splashed about as a suspected sex pest in the early edition of the local evening paper. And though as upholders of the law and defenders of the innocent, that group of eminent barristers should have known better, they still decided that there was no smoke without fire and Robert Winwood was someone they could do without. As did the other two outfits that had previously declared an ardent interest in having this fine young man on their team.
Shortly afterwards one of the few of Robert’s friends who would speak to me at all informed me that Robert had declared that if the law wouldn’t have him he’d be damned if he was going to bother with his degree and he’d dropped out entirely.
I hadn’t needed him to add, ‘It’s all your fault, Nella.’ I already knew that.
CHAPTER 4
The next mouthful of cold coffee was so disgusting that I had to get off my perch for a glass of water to clear the taste away. I decided that doing something useful might put me in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind, besides it’d probably be a good idea to try and regain some of the brownie points I’d lost yesterday. Even more had gone down the tube when I went to bed early last night. There’d been more than a hint of suspicion I was skiving off the washing up. Maggie had been muttering about not realising that I’d had glandular fever which was the only disease that she knew of that left you apparently unable to lift a finger. So all in all it seemed a good idea to take Oscar’s car and find some breakfast croissants.
I crept into his room and removed the keys from his table, remembering with rare thoughtfulness to leave him a note so he’d know that his precious car hadn’t been pinched, and set off. It took slightly longer than I’d anticipated to find the boulangerie, a lot longer in fact; I finally realised I was going in the wrong direction when I saw a large sign with Paris 555km on it. Once I was going the right way it was simple to find the centre of the little village and the boulangerie which was bang opposite the church and packed with people picking up baguettes.
I was on my way back, with the back seat piled with croissants and bread, turning on to the little side road that led to the Château and the cottage when I saw a spotted dog ambling along the verge. It didn’t seem very likely there could be two Dalmatians in such a small area so I slowed down and leaned out, calling ‘Lily!’
She trotted over. Yes, it was definitely Lily. There couldn’t be two dogs about that could smile and sneeze at the same time. I was sure she wasn’t supposed to be rocketing around on her own so I opened the door and told her to get in, thinking hopefully that maybe Oscar wouldn’t notice the dog hair on his charcoal grey seats. Like all well brought-up females, she refused to get in a car with a stranger and skittered back every time I tried to grab her collar - until she wa
s offered my breakfast croissant, whereupon I was instantly elevated to best family friend and she jumped straight in. I had a nasty feeling that Oscar would definitely notice the croissant crumbs as Lily made short and messy work of her present and looked around for more. I quickly removed the bag with the rest of the croissants before she decided to help herself and wondered if I could borrow a dustpan and brush when I returned her.
I hadn’t really expected the château’s guest to be on butlering duty before eight in the morning, but you never know and it was still a relief to see the door opened not by Robert but a slightly heavy-eyed Janey. ‘Hello, Nella, what can I do for you?’ she asked, looking confused at my early arrival.
‘I found this on the road,’ I said. She seemed even more puzzled as she stared at my handbag which I was holding out towards her, then her eyes travelled downwards and she saw the strap was attached to her errant hound who was sitting down, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
‘Oh, don’t tell me she was out again!’ she exclaimed in exasperation. ‘I’m going to kill Venetia! She never bothers to shut the garden gate properly and she knows perfectly well Lily can ease it open if the latch isn’t pushed right down.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, I should have thanked you before sounding off, shouldn’t I?’ she said ruefully. ‘I really am grateful. Would you like to come in for coffee?’ When I hesitated she went on, ‘Oh do, it’d be nice to have someone to talk to. While expert at food throwing, the twins aren’t exactly the greatest conversationalists.’ I didn’t know whether it was oblivion or supreme tact that made her add, ‘Everyone else is still asleep and probably will be for hours.’
Since I strongly doubted that any of my party would be awake and demanding croissants for some time either, I accepted with pleasure. We went through a cool shadowy hall, with a stunningly elegant curving staircase with curly wrought-iron banisters and walls painted a wonderful dusty blue, to a big cheerful kitchen with French windows onto the terrace, wide open even at this early hour. On either side of the windows tall, wire-fronted cupboards filled with china, glass and very professional-looking jars of preserves went right up to a ceiling crossed with dark oak beams. A dark green cooker, rather like a French version of an Aga, nestled in an inglenook and two built-in dressers had their shelves and surfaces covered with a plethora of pots containing wooden spoons, spatulas, knives, and other useful kitchen equipment, an extensive collection of cookbooks, baskets holding fruit, vegetables, nuts and eggs and little piles of things that didn’t have anywhere else to go. Immaculately tidy it definitely wasn’t, though you could see that there was method in the disorder. It probably didn’t take any longer to find a lemon squeezer or a paring knife than it would if they had been neatly stowed away and you had to remember where. I warmed to Janey; she was definitely someone after my own heart.
On the other side of the room, near a fireplace as tall as my shoulders, was a gigantic table, large enough to seat about twelve people, surrounded by ladderback chairs with brightly coloured green and yellow cushions, but with only one place laid with an empty mug and a book lying face down next to it. The twins, securely strapped into Alcatraz versions of high chairs and messily eating breakfast, were nearby but just out of food-throwing range, while the old Labrador sat next to them, ready to dash in and mop up any spills. One end of the table was also covered with piles of papers, a telephone, a laptop and a jam jar of chewed Biros. ‘My office,’ said Janey with a faint grimace. ‘Tom’s converted one of the rooms in the outbuildings into a proper office for me, but somehow I hardly ever get around to actually transporting all my stuff out there. It’s easier here.’
‘And nearer the kettle,’ I said.
‘And the biscuits - unfortunately. That’s why the weight I put on with the twins is still there, firmly on my behind.’
‘Oh come on! You can’t have had much of one before then,’ I said. While she wasn’t slim, she certainly wasn’t fat and her figure was the well-rounded sort with plenty of hip and bosom that most men seem to prefer to the slimmer model type. Well, that’s what lots of my male friends have told me - especially when they arrive hoping to be fed and are afraid that if I’m feeling fat they might get served diet food. Unfortunately, the truth is that the adjectives normally used to describe my figure are more likely to come from the ‘lumpy’ part of the Thesaurus than the ‘junoesque’ section - which still means pretty large but at least it’s supposed to be flattering. ‘I know what your problem is,’ I said. ‘You’ve got an acute case of Venetia-itis. It comes from spending too long around her. After a while any female starts to feel she resembles the reflection in one of those fat mirrors at a fair.’
Janey laughed. ‘How right you are!’ She ruffled the hair of the nearer twin. ‘Oh, to be like these two, they have life so easy. Wouldn’t it be nice to have everyone admiring how fat your legs are or saying how sweet your pot is?’
‘Mm.’ I considered them. ‘But I’m quite glad to be at the age where egg in the hair isn’t the latest in fashion statements.’ The twin, attired only in a nappy and an ample coating of cereal and egg yolk, beamed happily at me before going back to sucking on a soggy toast soldier with obvious enjoyment.
‘I think it’s known as storing a snack for later,’ Janey said. ‘I find it’s quicker and easier to wash them rather than their clothes, especially in this weather. Besides,’ she pointed at an old-fashioned hip bath just outside the window on the terrace, ‘they think the morning routine of twenty minutes in the bath after breakfast is a wonderful game and it means their mother can have a bit of peace too. You don’t get that with the washing machine.’
I refused the generous offer of a well-sucked soldier from the other twin as Janey bustled around ladling coffee grounds into a technical-looking coffee machine, automatically wiping one face or the other each time she passed, and talking over her shoulder as she went.
‘So if you aren’t Oscar’s girlfriend, how have you ended up at the cottage?’ she asked curiously as she reached to get sunny yellow mugs out of the cupboard. ‘I got the impression from what Maggie said that she knows you from work. Are you in PR too?’
I shook my head. ‘Good heavens, no! Nothing so grand - well, not according to Maggie. I’m in advertising, a copywriter - and Maggie considers us advertising bods to be lower-class cousins of the superior souls in PR. You see, we might have larger budgets than she does, but we have to pay to get our clients publicity, while she twists arms to get it for free.’
‘In the meantime charging her clients an arm and a leg for all the lunches she has to treat people to in order to get her “free” mentions,’ Janey said caustically. ‘But of course we hacks reckon that we’re the top of the tree. It’s Maggie and her ilk who are always chasing us to do them a favour by featuring their clients.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Though I have to say that you get given some jolly nice presents by PR people sometimes. Which agency do you work for? I might know them. I did a stint as a staff reporter at Advertising World years ago.’
‘Lassiter’s.’
‘Oh them,’ she said as she cut a butter-yellow brioche and put the slices on a place. ‘Fearful bunch of slave-drivers, aren’t they? No wonder you look so fragile. Oscar said you’d been ill - I’m surprised in that place you dared to be. I thought the merest sniffle was held to be grounds for the sack, since it meant you must have lied on the application form when you said you had good general health.’
‘You really do know them,’ I said wryly. ‘Except even Jim Lassiter pays enough attention to employment law not to actually threaten you with the sack for a sniffle. He’s more subtle. In my case it went along the lines that it simply wasn’t fair to my clients to have their copywriter taking so much time off for what these days isn’t even a serious illness, and if I didn’t get my finger out and get back to work he was very sorry but he’d have to move me sideways, probably into the charge of a pimply youth who’d only just finished a correspondence course in copywriting, while someone
more reliable took my place.’
‘Sounds like Jim Lassiter to me,’ said Janey, nodding. ‘As a matter of interest, what was the non-serious illness?’
‘Pneumonia, which I wouldn’t have had in the first place if I hadn’t gone back to work too soon after a bout of ’flu. At the time it seemed easier than staying at home fielding Jim’s calls every five minutes or so.’
Janey whistled softly. ‘Ever thought of getting a new job?’
‘Frequently,’ I said. ‘Especially in the pub on Friday evenings. Maybe Jim’s got a point when he says I lack application, though he tends to say that to anyone who asks for a pay rise. I’ve never managed to get around to stopping talking about finding a new job and actually writing a letter of application, but I’m going to look around now.’
‘Sounds like a good idea to me, but if you decide to stay on after all let me suggest a few extra weapons that might come in handy when demanding a pay rise...’ Janey began. She told me a couple of old but still delightfully scurrilous stories about some of the senior staff at the agency that had been deemed too sensitive to print in the sedate pages of Advertising World, actually your average tabloid might have hesitated before printing the full details of what happened between the Design Director and the salesman from the paper company. I never knew you could do that with a packet of Letraset. And I’d thought the Design Director was such a pillar of rectitude too. I made Janey repeat the most salient details so I could be absolutely sure I’d got them right. Christian, the senior copywriter who worked opposite me, was going to love this. And as for the real story behind why we’d failed to win the pitch for Bottisford Soft Drinks...
A simultaneous clamour arose from both twins. One was noisily bashing his tray with his spoon while the other lobbed his bowl at us. Janey caught it just in time and got them down, speedily wiping their protesting faces yet again before putting them into the tin bath. Contented splashing sounds started up almost immediately and she sat down with a relieved sigh. ‘I love them dearly, but they’re exhausting. Especially at breakfast. Delphine stays overnight when we go out in the evenings, otherwise she lives with her mother in the village and there are times when I bitterly regret not having a full-time live-in nanny - most mornings at about six-thirty, in fact.’
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