managing. There'll be no more monthly cheques, Mrs. Lascelles, because there's no old lady left to terrorize. What did you do to her to make her pay?'
She was staring out of the window but it was a long time before she answered. 'I didn't have to do anything, except be her daughter. She assumed I was like her, and that made her afraid of me.'
'I don't understand.'
She turned round to fix him with her strangely penetrating gaze. 'I watched her murder her father. She was terrified I was going to do the same to her.'
'Would you have done?'
She smiled suddenly and her beauty dazzled him. 'I'm like Hamlet, Sergeant, 'but mad north-north west.' You probably won't believe me but I was always more frightened that she would kill me. I've been sleeping quite well recently.'
'Will you go back to London?'
She shrugged. 'Of course. 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.' Have you read Samuel Johnson, Sergeant? He was a great deal wittier than Shakespeare.'
'I will now, Mrs. Lascelles.'
She turned back to the window and its wonderful view of the cedar of Lebanon that dominated the garden. 'I suppose if I fight Dr. Blakeney you'll pass on what you know about me to the Metropolitan Police.'
'I'm afraid I will.'
She gave a low laugh. 'Mother was always very good at blackmail. It's a pity you never met her. Will the Blakeneys look after Ruth, Sergeant? I wouldn't want her to starve.'
Which was, thought Cooper, the closest she would ever come to expressing affection for her daughter. 'They certainly plan to keep her with them in the short term,' he told her.
('Ruth will need all our emotional support,' Sarah had said, 'and that includes yours, Cooper, if she's to get through the abortion and Dave Hughes's trial.' 'And if Hughes is acquitted?' Cooper asked. 'He won't be,' said Sarah firmly. 'Three more girls have agreed to testify against him. Women have plenty of courage, you know, when they're not pinned to the ground with knives held to their throats.')
'And in the long term?' Joanna asked him.
'Assuming the will isn't challenged, then Dr. Blakeney will set up a trust fund for Ruth at the same time as she makes you a gift of the money your mother intended you to have.'
'Will she sell off the garden to do it?'
'I don't know. She told me this morning that Cedar House would make rather a fine nursing home.'
Joanna gripped her arms angrily. 'Mother must be turning in her grave to think the old ladies of Fontwell will be looked after at her expense. She couldn't stand any of them.'
Cooper smiled to himself. There really was a beautiful irony about it all, particularly as the first customer would probably be poor, bewildered Violet Orloff.
Jack watched Sarah out of the corner of his eye as he sat at his easel putting the finishing touches to the portrait of Joanna. She was staring aimlessly out of the window towards the wooded horizon, her forehead pressed against the cool glass. 'Penny for them,' he said at last.
'Sorry?' She turned to glance at him.
'What were you thinking about?'
'Oh, nothing, just-' she shook her head-'nothing.'
'Babies?' he suggested, without the usual trace of irony.
She moved into the centre of the room and stared at the painting of Mathilda. 'All right, yes, I was, but you needn't worry. It wasn't in hopeful anticipation. I was thinking that you've been right all along and that having babies is a mug's game. They bring you nothing but heartache and, frankly, I'd as soon play it safe and spare myself the anguish.'
'Pity,' he murmured, rinsing his brush in turpentine and wiping it on the kitchen roll, 'I was just getting acclimatized to the whole idea.'
She kept her voice deliberately light. 'I can take your jokes on most things, Jack, but not where babies are concerned. Sally Bennedict destroyed any credibility you might have on the subject the day she destroyed your little mistake.'
He looked very thoughtful. 'As a matter of interest, am I being singled out because I'm a man or are you planning to lay that same guilt-trip on Ruth in years to come?'
'That's different.'
'Is it? Can't see it myself.'
'Ruth wasn't two-timing her husband,' she muttered through gritted teeth.
'Then we aren't talking about babies, Sarah, and whether or not I have the right to change my mind, we are talking about infidelity. Two different things entirely.'
'In your book, maybe. Not in mine. Committing yourself to a person is no different from committing yourself to a belief. Why, if you couldn't bear to impregnate your wife, were you so unconcerned about impregnating your mistress?' Two spots of colour flared high on her cheekbones, and she turned away abruptly. 'Let bygones be bygones. I don't want to talk about it any more.'
'Why not?' he said. 'I'm having a hell of a good time.' He linked his hands behind his head and grinned at her rigid back. 'You've put me through hell these last twelve months. You yank me out of London without a 'by your leave' or a 'do you mind?'. Stick me in the middle of nowhere with a 'take it or leave it, Jack, you're only my shit of a husband.' ' His eyes narrowed. 'I've put up with Cock Robin Hewitt strutting his stuff about my kitchen, leering at
