The landlord’s own visitors mostly arrived by helicopter, or fancy cars with special electronic devices that opened the big wrought-iron gate with ease. His wife had three daughters who showed up from time to time. Their father had been a Russian oil magnate. Carla had quickly found a rich Brit to marry when the rich Russian died in a freak accident. And Carla had been horrified at the eyesore that was the Old Stables when she first moved into Crossfield. Digby’s van, his heaps of junk and the awful old caravan, and Beverley’s untidy heaps of dyed wool drying in the sunshine – it all produced an impression starkly at odds with the mansion Carla had so enthusiastically come to live in.
Crossfield House was indeed a mansion. Covered in ivy, dating to around 1760, modernised and beautiful, it suffered terribly from its scruffy little neighbour, in Carla’s eyes. ‘My father would simply have had it demolished without a second thought,’ she had said. ‘Surely you can do that?’
‘Sadly not,’ sighed her new husband. ‘I’d most likely end up with a prison sentence.’ But he shared her contempt for the slobbish Frowses and their stubborn refusal to take increasingly heavy hints. The house was deliberately allowed to fall into disrepair, with Rufus ducking out of his obligations to keep roof and windows watertight. The tenants paid such a minimal rent that he felt entirely justified in neglecting them. He had much more important things to do, such as entertaining CEOs of large corporations and discussing investments with fund managers. He also had to keep Carla happy with lengthy trips in his yacht. The lodge they owned in Aspen had to be visited two or three times a year, as well.
Beverley, her husband and son suspected, made everything worse by her attitude. Every time the rent was reviewed, she wrote a long letter to the authorities listing the reasons why the house was uninhabitable as it was, and any rent was extortion. Even more self-defeating, she refused to allow Digby to make any sort of improvements himself. ‘It’s not our property – we’re not responsible for the maintenance,’ she repeated over and over. And so the plaster flaked off, the plumbing was full of airlocks and the kitchen was an absolute mess.
And yet Beverley loved Christmas. She would hang up great sprigs of Digby’s holly and mistletoe, send handmade cards to everybody she had ever known, and kept a secret cupboard well stocked with surprise presents. On the day itself she would prepare a lavish meal with turkey and every imaginable accompaniment. More than once she had invited random strays to join them.
‘What was the row about?’ Digby wondered now. ‘Did she say?’
‘Something to do with a package that’s gone missing. I didn’t take very much notice, but apparently Rufus sent up for some priceless piece of jewellery for Carla, and it never arrived.’
‘What? He had it sent through the post? That doesn’t sound very likely.’
‘I might have got it wrong. He accused Mum of having it, anyway. That was on Wednesday afternoon, when she was down by the gate. She was absolutely livid about it. You can’t have missed the whole thing. You were right here when she came to tell us about it.’
His father grimaced. ‘I remember bits of it. She wasn’t really talking to me, was she? I was on the computer, as I recall.’
One of Digby’s many methods of distracting himself from what he had feared would be long days of retirement was discussing the American Civil War with a large group of like-minded aficionados on his laptop – which he generally brought downstairs during the day, sitting at a small table in a corner of the living room and ignoring everything going on around him. He had been to the battlefields once, long ago, and never lost the interest. When he was on one of his forums, a bomb could go off next to him and he wouldn’t notice.
Ant tried to remember more detail. ‘I admit it didn’t make a lot of sense. You know how she talks in shorthand. But now I’m wondering—’
‘What?’
‘It might not have been the usual sort of thing. He was accusing her of something. Stealing, even. But just as I was starting to think it might be important, Jason phoned and I had to set him straight about the trees and we never got back to it. Mum went upstairs and the rest of the day seemed fairly normal. She made that lamb stew, remember, and went to bed early? And I don’t think I’ve seen her since then.’
‘Oh,’ said Digby with a sigh. ‘Well, I haven’t either. D’you think we ought to do something about it?’
Mr and Mrs Frowse did not share a bedroom. When their daughter died, they agreed that her room should not be kept as any kind of shrine to her, except for a framed photograph of her. And on a corner shelf there stood a lidded urn made of porcelain in which Aldebaran’s ashes were stored. ‘I want her to be buried with me when I go,’ said Beverley.
She had moved into the empty room and had been there ever since, with Digby making very little objection. ‘Can I be in the grave with you as well?’ was all he said. As far as Ant could tell, there were no conjugal encounters between his parents. Not one of the family could claim any activity of that kind. Only the dog enjoyed any sort of sex life, and that had been two years ago when Percy had fathered a litter of crossbreed puppies and suffered the extreme punishment of losing his gonads as a result.
‘I’ll try her phone again,’ said Ant
