‘My guess is that he’d dropped something – a watch or a ring – and knew it happened when he was walking round the field. Don’t you think?’
The man had seemed sinister when Stephanie had first seen him going down towards the field in near-darkness. ‘He was there on Friday as well, don’t forget,’ she said. ‘When it was dark and we were unloading your car.’
‘Are you sure it was him? Don’t people go past here all the time?’
‘Not really. And yes, I am sure. I thought he’d got three legs—’ She laughed in self-mockery. ‘Then I thought it was a gun. I was quite scared when I went to bed last night, thinking he might be coming to shoot us.’
‘God, Steph. You’ve got quite an imagination, haven’t you! Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘I suppose there was too much going on, with Drew’s dad and everything.’
‘He was a bit suspicious, though, don’t you think? The man, I mean.’
‘Well, not so much. It looked rather innocent to me, actually.’
Stephanie argued. ‘Well, I think it’s odd. They don’t do that sort of thing around here. They walk dogs and watch birds and take pictures, or go in huge walking groups, yomping along the footpaths. That’s what Thea calls it – yomping.’ She chuckled. ‘Isn’t that a great word?’
‘Typical Mum word, anyway. So this man − maybe he’s just lonely, it being Christmas, and stuck for something to do. He might not have anybody to be with, so he decided to try and find some Roman coins or something.’
‘Maybe.’ Stephanie tried to recapture the whole scene. ‘Do you think he’d found a treasure map that had a big X right at that spot where we saw him?’ She grinned. ‘That’s what Timmy would say, anyway.’
‘It could be geocaching,’ Jessica agreed. ‘If you know what that is? Except I don’t think that requires a metal detector.’
‘I don’t know what it is,’ Stephanie admitted.
‘It’s a sort of treasure hunt, in a way. People hide little collections of objects all over the place, and then tell other people the map reference, and they go out looking for the hidden stuff. Something like that, anyway,’ she finished vaguely.
‘Sounds nice. How do you get into it?’
‘No idea. Try Google, I suppose. You probably have to sign up to a website or an app.’
‘Right,’ said Stephanie weakly. It was an intriguing piece of information, fitting so nicely with the fantasy she’d suggested, but it did not quite ring true. Without quite understanding how it had happened, there now seemed to be almost too much to talk and think about. The calamity that had befallen the Blackwoods and the Frowses, on top of Drew’s dash to County Durham and Christmas and Thea and families and whether people would like her presents, and what they were having for supper, and whether she’d see Tim before they got their stockings, and when she would ever catch up with the stories he was surely going to have to tell her.
Jessica seemed to read her mind. ‘The Frowses seem like nice people,’ she began.
‘Ant’s nice. He won’t have a good Christmas, will he, not knowing where his mother is, and what she’s been doing.’
‘I guess not. Did you have any thoughts about that – anything you tried to say but couldn’t make us listen?’
Stephanie shook her head. ‘Not really. Nothing sensible, anyway.’
‘So tell me something unsensible.’
‘Well – it’s really stupid, but that parcel. The one the landlord said was lost. It’s all part of the mystery, isn’t it? I just thought it could be that the metal detector man might have been looking for it.’
‘That really is bonkers, Steph. The field is nowhere near the Frowse place. I mean – it might make a bit of sense if we’d seen him burying something. But he was trying to find something. Wasn’t he?’
‘I know. I said it was stupid. Things don’t have to connect like that. I mean – they really don’t connect. But in my head, they sort of do. And there is a bit of a straight line from there to here, with a kink in the middle where you go along the road. And we do know the Frowses, and there aren’t many places where nobody could see you from a house if you were doing something secret. Even on the big footpath there are always people and dogs everywhere. So it wouldn’t be such a huge coincidence, really.’ She paused for breath, wondering where all those thoughts had come from. Most of them had been hidden until she started talking.
Before Jessica could reply, the front door opened, letting a gust of cold air into the house, along with Thea, Hepzibah and a man who Stephanie instantly recognised.
When their visitors had gone, Ant and Digby found themselves at a loss as to how to go on. Things had been said that they were both beginning to regret. ‘We ought not to have told Thea and that daughter of hers so much about your mum,’ said Digby. ‘It won’t have done any good.’
‘Can’t do any harm,’ Ant argued.
‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? Things are different now.’
‘I know that!’ Ant was suddenly angry. ‘They were bad enough before, and now we’ve got to worry about being charged with killing our landlord. I’d say that was quite a big difference. And even if he died of a heart attack, we’ve still got more than enough to worry about. It’s a rock and a hard place, if you ask me. Either Carla stays on and ups the intimidation stakes, or she sells the place and we’ve got a whole new set of problems.’
‘Could be we get someone with a liberal social conscience, who has no problem with tenants who pay their rent regularly and don’t cause any nuisance.’
‘Dream on,’ said Ant bitterly.
It was almost dark when they were disturbed by a persistent knocking on the front door. ‘It’s the police again, you see,’ said Digby – wrongly, as Ant discovered when
