Rob left Katharine asleep and closed the door quietly behind him. He went into all of the other bedrooms, except for the bedroom that Grace and Portia were sharing. Martin was in none of them, not even in either of the two bedrooms with the stained-glass windows. The door to the end bedroom, next to the Old Dewer window, was still locked. The key was on the outside, so Martin couldn’t have gone to sleep in there, quite apart from the fact that it had no bed.
So where the hell is he? He wasn’t anywhere downstairs, because I checked every room last night, even the toilet. Don’t tell me he went back out. It was pitch dark last night and cold enough to freeze the balls off the proverbial brass monkey, and he had left his overcoat in the drawing room. Apart from that, Martin never goes anywhere without his phone. Ever.
All the same, Rob looked into the drawing room again, and the library, and the kitchen. He even opened the larder door, though he knew that was ridiculous.
When he was sure that Martin was in none of the rooms downstairs, he shrugged on his coat and opened the front door. Ragged grey clouds were hurrying across the sky like Old Dewer’s hounds, and there was still a biting breeze blowing. He prayed to his new-found God that he wouldn’t find Martin lying in the garden somewhere, dead of hypothermia.
He crossed the courtyard to the larger of the two granite barns, wrenched the door open and went inside. The smell of damp hay seemed to be stronger than ever.
‘Martin? Mart? You’re not in here, are you?’
He circled around the barn, kicking at one of the heaps of hay to make sure Martin hadn’t covered himself with it to keep warm. He didn’t think it at all likely that Martin had come in here to spend the night, no matter how fiercely he had argued with Katharine. Martin relished his comfort too much, just like their father. Besides, he would have been too drunk to lift up the half-collapsed door.
He went into the smaller barn, but there was no sign of Martin in there, either. Then he walked around the back of the house, and into the kitchen garden. It was starting to rain again, and the weedy vegetable beds looked more dismal and neglected than ever.
Back in the house, he found Portia in the kitchen, in a mustard-coloured sweater and tight denim jeans. She had lit the fire under the range and was boiling the electric kettle.
‘What were you doing outside, Rob?’
‘I’ve been looking for Martin. He seems to have gone missing, like Timmy.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘No. I heard him come back from Tavistock last night and he sounded like he’d had a few. He didn’t go up to bed and I thought he was kipping down on the sofa in the drawing room. But when I came down this morning he wasn’t there and I can’t find him anywhere.’
‘Huh! Perhaps he thought he’d had enough of this house and decided to leave. I don’t mean this personally, but I’ve had quite enough of it myself. It’s the spookiest house I’ve ever slept in, bar none.’
‘Oh, come on. His Range Rover’s still in the driveway, and there’s no way he would have left on foot.’
‘He’s not hiding in that priest’s hole, is he?’
‘The door’s locked and the key’s on the outside, so he couldn’t be in there.’
The kettle started to whistle, and Portia poured boiling water into the coffee percolator. ‘Would you like a coffee? You look frozen.’
‘Thanks. Yes.’ He watched her taking three mugs down from the kitchen cabinet. Then he said, ‘You don’t have to stay here, you know. There’s scores of police and volunteers out looking for Timmy and they keep showing pictures of him on the news. I don’t know what else we can do.’
‘Grace wants to stay to support you and Vicky. And if that’s what Grace wants, that’s what I want. I know I’m a bit of a bossy-boots sometimes, but you have to be when everybody at school calls you lezzy or dyke and your parents disown you because they wanted you to marry some drippy estate agent called Malcolm.’
Rob couldn’t help smiling.
Portia said, ‘Grace loves you, you know. She says you always stood up for her when she was little and your father shouted at her for being clumsy, and then when she was older and he began to suspect that she was attracted to girls more than boys. She loves you, and she loves Vicky and Timmy just as much, and she’s not going to let you down. And I love her more than I can tell you, so as long as she wants to stay, I’ll stay, too.’
Katharine came into the kitchen. Her face was white and her eyes were bloodshot and she had put on her red roll-neck sweater backwards, so the collar came right up under her chin.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Jack Ratt scrumpy. Never again. I feel like I’ve been sat on by a horse.’
‘Katharine—’ Rob began.
‘Is that coffee? I’d love some. But I think I’d better drink some water first. I’ve been sick, and I’m so dehydrated.’
Portia poured Katharine a large glass of water, which she drank in huge gulps, her eyes swivelling around, as if she had been crawling for five days across the Sahara. When she had finished, Rob said, ‘Did Martin give you any idea where he might be going off to?’
Katharine wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared at him, baffled.
‘What do you mean? He slept here downstairs, didn’t he? We had a row. I can’t even remember what it was about. But he didn’t come up to bed. At home he usually sleeps in his study if we’ve had an argument about something or other.’
‘He didn’t sleep
