‘Thanks. I’ll tick you off on my list. Everybody has coughed up except Jane, who was taking P.E. and had left her purse in her locker, and Fanny, who, as usual, swore she hadn’t any change. Oh, thanks, Edward. What are you going to do for the holidays? Swot?’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied James. ‘I shall be doing research, as usual.’
‘In London?’
‘Of course, yes. Where else?’
‘I thought you might be following in the steps of Saint Paul, or going to Rome or something. First-hand material, you know.’
‘Oh, no. It wouldn’t help me.’ He turned his back on her and continued to tidy his locker.
(3)
Laura read the letter twice before she laid it down. Observing that her employer was still involved with her own correspondence, she said nothing, but began upon a plate of gammon and eggs. At the toast and marmalade stage she noted that Dame Beatrice had put aside the last of her letters and was prepared for conversation.
‘Anything there for me to deal with?’ Laura enquired.
‘I think not. I shall have to stay here in the Kensington house for a week or two. Doctor Fairson has his son from New Zealand staying with them, and, although he doesn’t say so, I feel certain that he would be glad to give up the clinic for a bit and enjoy his son’s company, and Miss Gibson is too young and inexperienced to be left in full charge.’
‘Right. I’ll stay here with you.’
‘But Hamish will be coming home for his Easter holiday. It would be better for him in Hampshire than in London.’
‘Yes, but he won’t be coming yet. That’s what my letter is about. As Easter is so ridiculously early this year – why they don’t fix it I can’t think – the headmaster isn’t going to close the school until the middle of April. Parents can have their boys home for the Easter week-end if they like, but there will be full religious observance of the festival at school and a school outing (weather permitting) on Easter Monday. If it’s wet, the boys will be taken to the pictures. Fair enough, I think? That means I don’t have to put up with him for another three weeks. Incidentally, Gavin says he ought to have a baby sister. What do you think?’
‘What are you going to call her?’
Laura first stared at her employer and then laughed.
‘Eiladh,’ she said. ‘That’s if and when. There’s nothing on the horizon at present.’
‘Hamish, I am sure, will approve.’
‘I’m not so sure. There’s always something attractive in being the only pebble on the beach. I can just imagine his disgust if I present him with a brother.’
‘If I know Hamish, he will become guardian angel to a baby of either sex.’
‘Yes, you do know Hamish. I wish I did,’ said Laura.
They made a flying visit to the Stone House on the Wednesday before Good Friday, and, back in London, received, via the newspapers of the following Tuesday, the first news of the third murder.
(4)
Shane and Agnes Clancy had moved into their new bungalow in May, 1964. They were a young and pleasant couple and had been married for less than two years. Shane was a bank clerk and, until the first baby was expected, Agnes had held the post of secretary at a school in the small town of Milton Cliffs, some ten miles from the Stone House at Wandles Parva.
When Agnes was five months with child, Shane was promoted from his post at the local bank, where most of the staff at his wife’s school had their accounts, to a much larger branch in Southampton.
‘We shall have to move, I’m afraid,’ he said, at the end of a month. ‘I can’t go on doing a forty-mile journey twice a day every day. It’s beginning to get a bit much. A pity, now we’ve got the garden going so nicely.’ He looked with regret at the well-tended lawn and the flower-beds, at the small lilypond he had installed and at the crazy-paving round it. ‘Promotion is all very fine, but there are disadvantages.’
‘Could we put off moving until after the baby comes?’
‘We must. You’re in no shape to cope with a big operation like moving.’
‘“Shape” is about right, but please don’t mention operations.’
‘In any case,’ said Shane, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head, ‘we’ve still got to find somewhere, and that’s going to take a bit of time. Besides, I’ve got to sell before I can buy.’
‘Shall we have to live in Southampton itself? I wouldn’t fancy that.’
‘Not after this place, no, neither would I.’ The bungalow looked out over a valley to green hills beyond. ‘I’ll have to go into digs for the present, but I can come home on Saturday afternoons and go back early on Monday mornings, so it won’t be too bad for a bit.’
‘I shall hate being left alone here all the week. Could we afford to have an au pair girl?’
‘It’s the only solution, although if we could find a proper maid it might be more satisfactory.’
‘It’s an added expense, just when we didn’t want one, but I dread the idea of being on my own. It isn’t even as if we had any near neighbours.’
‘Funny how the chickens come home to roost, isn’t it? When we fell for this place it was simply because we hadn’t any near neighbours.’
The spring and summer passed, the baby was born, but the bungalow had found no purchaser and the Italian maid, whom Shane had found through the kind efforts of one of the bank’s customers, stayed on. She proved to be an efficient nursemaid and, what with her keep and her pay and the cost of Shane’s digs, Agnes decided that, as soon as the baby was old enough, she herself would look for a job. She
