‘Why? Where are you going to be?’ It could have been any one of them asking this startled question, but in fact it was Drew.
‘Here, of course. I never said I was going anywhere, did I?’ The fact that they had all assumed that that was what she had meant was alarming in itself. It made Stephanie sad on Thea’s behalf, that they all thought she was so unreliable, so anxious to be somewhere else. But it was still true; even the way she sat gave the impression that she was about to jump up and leave them. The way she was obviously thinking about other things even when talking and laughing with Drew and Jessica made her seem perpetually detached.
The moment was quickly over, and a small amount of tidying up was accomplished. The game was postponed until after they’d had some salad and cake, which was entirely surplus to requirements, but somehow expected.
‘But first we all have to go outside for a bit,’ Thea ordered. ‘If only for the sake of the dog.’ To Stephanie’s surprise, there was wholesale enthusiasm for this plan, despite a cold breeze and cloudy skies.
‘Can I take my drone?’ Timmy asked, picking the new toy out of his box.
‘Is it a real one?’ asked Drew. ‘Who gave you that?’
‘It was in his stocking,’ said Thea. ‘It’s not very high-tech, but it looks like fun. You wind it up, and then let it go. Let’s see it, Tim.’
The child handed it over, and she read the notes on the packaging. ‘“Soars twenty feet into the air. Only to be used outdoors.” Sounds great. We can all have a go.’
When they gathered in the lane outside, the same loud Christmas music was coming from Mr Shipley’s house over the way as they had heard the day before. ‘Isn’t that the same carol as yesterday?’ asked Jessica. ‘Is he just playing it all on a loop, or what?’
Thea paused to listen more closely. ‘It’s odd that he’s there at all. I distinctly remember him saying he was going to London for the whole week.’
‘Maybe it’s done by remote control, to make burglars think he’s at home,’ Jessica suggested.
‘Not very likely. I don’t think he’s very high-tech. All he does is leave the landing light on when he goes away.’
Drew and Timmy were striding down towards the field, chatting earnestly. ‘Look at them!’ marvelled Thea. ‘That trip to his mother’s seems to have done wonders for their bonding.’
Stephanie was trying to peer up Mr Shipley’s driveway to see if she could detect any life in the house. She liked their neighbour, who was a middle-aged bachelor with old-fashioned manners. He had taken the trouble to talk to her about books and local history more than once, treating her like a grown-up and asking her opinion. When his sister died and Dad did the funeral, they had grown even closer. One of their conversations had dwelt with remarkable frankness on the merits of burial over cremation, with particular reference to environmental considerations.
‘Could we invite him to come for a drink, like we did that other time?’ she asked Thea.
‘Oh! That was Easter, wasn’t it? Didn’t he stay for the meal as well?’
‘He could come and have some cake.’
‘It’s much too short notice, Steph,’ said Jessica. ‘And what’s he going to think? That you’d forgotten all about him until now, probably. Or you had a sudden surge of Christmas spirit at the last minute. If he’s lonely or bored, he might not want you to know about it. And some people really prefer to forget the whole thing.’
‘Oh,’ said Stephanie, trying to imagine herself into such a person’s shoes. ‘I can’t see his car, anyway. He usually leaves it in front of the garage. He told me he’s got too many boxes and stuff to get the car in. So probably he’s not there, after all.’
‘So what’s with the music?’ wondered Thea.
‘That’s a mystery,’ shrugged Jessica, trotting after the menfolk. ‘Hey, you two, wait for us.’
In the field, Stephanie was reminded again of the metal detector man who turned out to be a handsome young police detective. ‘Let’s go down into the next field and see if we can find some treasure,’ she said, and began running across the short grass with Hepzie flying after her. None of the human beings seemed inclined to follow, so she slowed down, but kept on in the same direction. ‘He was just here,’ she muttered to herself, arriving at the foot of a towering oak tree. Idly she scuffed her boots back and forth in the slowly decomposing leaves shed by the tree. It appeared to her to be a singularly improbable spot in which to bury stolen jewels, or whatever it was Finch Graham had been searching for. All the same, the idea of hidden gold was magical enough to fire her enthusiasm. ‘Nothing here,’ she soon concluded, and began to work her way along the hedge, before rejoining the others. Timmy’s drone was proving to be something of a disappointment, apparently. It wasn’t powered by batteries, but an old-fashioned clockwork mechanism that seemed slightly babyish to Stephanie. She watched an abortive launch in which it leapt to a height of about ten feet and then instantly flopped back to the ground.
‘You’re supposed to wind it up,’ came Thea’s voice across the open field.
The next attempt was far more successful, the little grey gadget whirring high overhead for at least twenty seconds. Everybody cheered.
Jessica began walking over to meet Stephanie. ‘Find anything?’ she called.
‘No. It was a silly place to look, anyway.’
They drew closer, until normal conversation became possible. ‘I don’t expect he stayed here for long. My mum found him up in the village somewhere, didn’t she? Presumably he was just trying different places at random. I wonder if he got proper permission?’
‘He
