Tomorrow's ghost

'Indeed, you promised. You gave a positive undertaking -'

'I'm not a reporter,' said Frances.

The nose came back to her. Nannie peered towards her, sighting her at point-blank range. 'No? Well, you are exactly like the young woman who misreported me at the last parish council meeting.' She scrutinised Frances's face again, then her suit. 'You still look like her ... but you are better dressed, it's true ... Hmm! Then if you are not a reporter -

what are you?'

'My name is Fitzgibbon -'

'You are not a policewoman. You are far too little to be a policewoman.'

Detective-Sergeant Geddes cleared his throat. 'Mrs Hooker -'

'You are not too young to be a policewoman - and you are not that girl who misreported me, I can see that now, she was much younger...' Nannie conceded the point on the basis other own scrutiny, not on their denials. 'You are older than you look too. It's in the eyes, your age is. Old eyes in a young face, that's what you've got. And also - ' She stopped suddenly.

'Mrs Hooker, this is Mrs Fitzgibbon, from London - from the Colonel's department.'

Geddes seized his chance. 'She's the person we've been waiting for, that I told you about.'

'What?' Nannie frowned at him, then at Frances.

'I'm a colleague of Colonel Butler's,' said Frances.

Disbelief supplanted the frown. 'A colleague?'

'A subordinate colleague,' Frances softened the claim.

Nannie transferred the disbelieving look to Geddes. 'You didn't say it would be a woman,' she accused him. 'I expected a man.'

Like master, like housekeeper, concluded Frances grimly: Colonel Butler and Mrs Hooker had the same ideas about the natural order of things. Perhaps that coincidence of prejudice had been an essential qualification for the job nine years ago, when he had been casting around for someone to take charge of his motherless girls.

So now, although Nannie obviously disliked having policemen tramp over her highly-polished floors almost as much as she hated thieves, she might just have tolerated one of her employer's colleagues - any of his colleagues except this one, who added insult to injury by being the wrong shape and size.

Hard luck, Nannie, thought Frances unsympathetically. But more to the point, hard luck, Frances. Because here was an unfair obstacle on the course, the only clue to which had been that twitch of the detective-sergeant's just half a minute before it had loomed up in front of her. And more than an obstacle, too, because obstacles could be removed, or climbed, or jumped, or avoided.

Nannie was watching her intently, no longer with naked hostility, but without either approval or deference. And that was the problem: somehow, and very quickly, Mrs Hooker must approve of and defer to Mrs Fitzgibbon.

Small smile.

'Sorry, Nannie. But I'm afraid I'm the best they could manage at short notice. You'll have to make do with me.' 'Nannie' was a risk, but she had to take a short cut to some degree of familiarity. And also, at the same time and without seeming too pushy - too unfeminine - she had to assert herself.

She turned to Geddes. 'Who else is here?'

'Inspector Turnbull and his DC, madam. And the uniform man.' Geddes gave her a glazed look. 'I think they are out the back somewhere, in the garden.'

She wanted them all out. She wanted Nannie to herself, without interruptions.

'Then would you be so good as to tell the Inspector that I'm here, please?' No smile for Detective-Sergeant Geddes. 'Don't let him stop what he's doing. I'd just like to have a word with him before he goes ... before you all go... will you tell him?'

'Very good, madam.' Geddes moved smartly towards the door.

'And wipe your feet when you come back in,' admonished Nannie to his back.

'Yes, madam.' He sounded happy to be getting out of her way. What was more important, however, was that the foot-wiping admonition offered one possible short-cut to Nannie's heart: the sooner Mrs Fitzgibbon got rid of the police, the better for Mrs Fitzgibbon.

'Now, Nannie... I take it the Colonel hasn't phoned, or anything like that?' She padded the question deliberately.

'No, Miss Fitzgibbon.' Nannie declared neutrality.

'Are you expecting a call from him? Does he call home regularly when he's away?'

Frances decided to let the 'Miss' go uncorrected for the time being.

'No, Miss Fitzgibbon.' Armed neutrality.

'I see... Well, we're doing our best to get in touch with him.' Not true. 'It's only a question of time.'

Nannie stiffened. There's no call to worry him.' Frances wondered how much Nannie knew about the nature of her employer's work. Probably not a lot, the Official Secrets Act being what it was, though enough to accept that a break-in at Brookside House could never be treated at its face value.

'I'm sure there isn't,' she agreed gently. 'But the rules say that we have to, for everyone's protection. So you must look on me as just part of the rules, Nannie.'

Nannie thawed by about one degree centigrade. 'Very good. Miss Fitzgibbon.'