‘Ant!’ his father scolded. ‘Stop talking so much.’ He glanced at the policeman, who was clearly floundering. ‘We see Mr and Mrs Blackwood quite regularly, Officer. Usually when we meet at the road gate, or when they have a reason to walk past the end of our garden. That isn’t very often, and they seldom pause for a chat. We have very little in common to talk about, actually.’
‘What’s happened to him, then?’ asked Ant impatiently. ‘It can’t hurt to tell us now we’ve answered your questions. We already knew he’d gone missing, so whatever it is isn’t going to come as a very great surprise. Unless someone’s killed him, of course.’
The silence spoke for itself. ‘Good God!’ said Digby, sitting bolt upright in the chair he had not left all morning. ‘Is that what’s happened?’
‘His body was found today, close to the perimeter fence around this property,’ the officer informed them, with a small frown.
‘Shot? Stabbed? Throttled?’ Ant’s excitement was impossible to conceal.
‘I’m not authorised to reveal any further information.’
‘Never mind. Blimey! This is going to shake things up a bit.’ Ant stared at his father. ‘What’ll happen to us, then?’ When there was no reply, he faced the policeman. ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Of course you are. And you think it was homicide, as the Americans say. Homicide …’ he repeated, his face suddenly drooping. ‘That’s what they called it when my sister died. And it’s never all right, you know. I never thought I’d say this, but I actually feel sorry for the loathsome Carla.’
Digby was also shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘But where’s my wife?’ he asked, his right hand stretching out as if needing to feel her presence. ‘I want Beverley.’
‘Hush, Dad,’ said Ant. ‘She’ll be back. Everything’s going to be all right.’
‘Wife, sir?’ Both officers were suddenly alert. ‘You are unaware of her exact whereabouts?’
Ant snorted at the clumsy sentence. He was still feeling giddy with relief. But Digby was ahead of him, frantically trying to backtrack. ‘Oh, gosh, silly me,’ he chuckled, in a perfect imitation of an addle-headed old man. ‘She went off to the shops, I remember now. Wouldn’t let me go with her, said I’d be in the way. Time she was home, though. She’ll be wanting to hear the news.’
‘We need to speak to her,’ said one of the men decisively.
‘You won’t want to waste time hanging about here,’ said Ant, picking up his father’s lead. ‘The shops must be awful today – all that last-minute panic buying.’
The men exchanged glances. ‘Well … when she gets back, could you ask her to contact us?’ said the more talkative one.
‘Of course,’ said Digby, with a little bow. ‘Excuse me if I don’t get up.’
The policemen took their leave, with a few scanty lines in a notebook. Whatever the situation on this peculiar fortified estate, it was beyond their pay grade to understand.
Jessica continued to admonish her mother about her determination to involve herself in the Crossfield business. ‘So now you know it’s not Beverley,’ she repeated, ‘you’ve got much less reason to be concerned.’
‘Yes, I know. But it’s still a major event. It’ll have enormous ramifications for the Frowses. The police are going to be all over them, because you only have to glance at the place to see there’s a stand-off between landlord and tenants. There’s probably a file on it all somewhere, because Beverley always contests any rent rises. And we still don’t know what’s become of her – Beverley, I mean.’
‘So what’re you going to do? It’s Christmas Eve, Mother. You’ve got responsibilities here.’
‘I thought I could go and see Ant and his father after lunch. The police activity will have settled down by then. You and Steph can come with me, if you like. We could make a nice walk of it.’
‘And Hepzie?’ asked Stephanie. ‘She likes playing with Percy.’
‘Why not?’
Stephanie was feeling very grown-up, the way Thea and Jessica were including her in the whole discussion. While there was no definite suggestion that the Blackwood man had been murdered, there did seem to be a feeling that he might have been. Never before had she been around Thea when something like this had happened. She had only heard short summaries, after everything had been resolved. Now here they were, right in the middle of it from the start. She allowed herself a smug little thought that after all, Timmy was not having all the fun. ‘They call him Blackheart, you know,’ she said, when the dead man was under discussion.
‘What’s his real name, again?’ asked Jessica.
‘Blackwood. Like the magazine,’ Thea told her. At Jessica’s blank look, Thea sighed. ‘Before your time. Before mine, actually. I think it died when I was about ten. But I came across it when I was doing that history course. Blackwood’s Magazine was an institution. Very radical and satirical. I don’t suppose this man is connected in any way, although he is a Scot, I think, and it was an Edinburgh publication.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Jessica.
They were eating another of Thea’s ad hoc lunches, with bread and bacon and scrambled egg. Jessica had called it ‘brunch’, which Stephanie found amusing. Another thought struck her – with so much happening, the day was going to fly by, bringing Christmas morning all the sooner.
‘So are we going out, then?’ Jessica asked. ‘Or what?’
Thea was emphatic. ‘I don’t care what you two do, but there’s no way I can just leave it as it is. And this is the only chance we’ve got. Once Drew gets
