Scold's Bridle

telephone call and someone would oblige with the information.'

She seemed to shrink in front of his eyes. 'Then there's nothing I can do.'

He frowned. 'You can start by telling me where to find him.'

'Are you going to arrest him?'

'For what?'

'Stealing from Granny. You'll have to arrest me, too.'

He shrugged. 'I'll need to talk to your grandmother's executors about that. They may decide to let sleeping dogs lie.'

'Then you're just going to ask him questions about the day Granny died?'

'Yes,' he agreed, assuming it was what she wanted to hear.

She shook her head. 'He does terrible things to me when he's angry.' Her eyes flooded again. 'If you don't put him in prison then I can't tell you where to find him. You just don't understand what he's like. He'll punish me.'

'How?'

But she shook her head again, more violently. 'I can't tell you that.'

'You're protected here.'

'He said he'd come and make a scene in the middle of the school if I ever did anything he didn't like. They'll expel me.'

Cooper was perplexed. 'If you're so worried about expulsion, why did you ever go out and meet him in the first place? You'd have been expelled on the spot if you'd been caught doing that.'

She twisted her fingers in the hem of her jumper. 'I didn't know then how much I wanted to go to university,' she whispered.

He nodded. 'There's an old saying about that. You never miss the water till the well runs dry.' He smiled without hostility. 'But all of us take things for granted so you're not alone in that. Try this one: desperate diseases call for desperate remedies. I suggest you make a clean breast of all this to your headmistress, throw yourself on her mercy, so to speak, before she finds out from me or Hughes. She might be sympathetic. You never know.'

'She'll go mad.'

'Do you have a choice?'

'I could kill myself,' she said in a tight little voice.

'It's a very weak spirit,' he said gently, 'that sees cutting off the head as the only solution to a headache.' He slapped his hands against his knees. 'Find a bit of courage, girl. Give me Dave's address and then sort things out with your headmistress.'

Her lip wobbled. 'Will you come with me if I do?'

Oh, good grief, he thought, hadn't he had to hold his own children's hands often enough? 'All right,' he agreed, 'but if she asks me to leave I shall have to. I've no authority here as your guardian, remember.'

'Twenty-three, Palace Road, Bournemouth,' she whispered. 'It was my mother who told you I was a thief, wasn't it?' She sounded desperately forlorn, as if she realized that, for her, there was no one left.

'No,' said Cooper compassionately. 'More's the pity, but your mother hasn't told me anything.'

When Sarah pulled into her driveway later that Friday afternoon, she was greeted by the unexpected sight of Jack's car and Cooper's car nestling side by side against the wall in cosy intimacy. Her first inclination was to turn round and drive away again. She hadn't the stomach for a confrontation with either of them, even less for another baring of her soul in front of Cooper while her husband severed his remaining ties. But second thoughts prevailed. Dammit all-she banged her fist angrily against the steering wheel-it was her house. She was buggered if she was going to drive around for hours just to avoid her scumbag of a husband and a pompous policeman.

Quietly, she let herself in through the front door, half-thinking that if she tiptoed past the studio, she could possess herself of the kitchen before they knew she was there. As her mother had once said, slamming the kitchen door on Sarah's father: 'An Englishman's home may be his castle, but an Englishwoman's kitchen is where he eats his humble pie.' The sound of voices drifted down the corridor, however, and she knew they had possessed it before her. With a sigh, she fastened her dignity about her like armour plating, and advanced.

Jack, DS Cooper and Ruth Lascelles looked up from their glasses of wine with differing shades of alarm and embarrassment colouring their faces.

'Hi,' said Sarah into the silence. 'You found the '83 Cheval Blanc with no trouble then.'

'Have some,' said Jack, reaching for a clean glass off the draining board. 'It's good.'

'It should be,' she said. 'It's a St. Emilion, Premier Grand Cru Class6, and it cost me a small fortune when I laid it down.'

'Don't be so stuffy, woman. You've got to try them from time to time, otherwise you'll end up with a collector's item that's totally undrinkable.' He filled the glass and pushed it across the table, his eyes bright with mischief. She felt a surge of affection for the randy bastard-love, she thought, was the most stubborn of all the diseases-but hid it under a ferocious glare. 'The consensus view amongst the three of us,' he went on cheerfully, 'is dark ruby colour, brilliant legs, and a very exotic nose-curranty fruit, cigar box and hints of herbs and spices.'

'It's a vintage wine, you moron. It's supposed to be savoured and appreciated, not drunk at five o'clock in the afternoon round the kitchen table. I bet you didn't let it breathe. I bet you just poured it out like Lucozade.'

Cooper cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry, Dr. Blakeney. We did say we'd be happier with tea.'

'You pusillanimous rat,' said Jack with imperturbable good humour. 'You drooled when I waved the bottle under your nose. Well, come on, old thing, you might as well try it. We're all dying for second helpings but we thought it would be tactful to wait till you arrived before we opened another one.'