‘You’re awful,’ Jessica told her. ‘I guess I should think myself lucky you let me come and stay.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ said Thea, who never let a remark like that pass unchallenged. ‘You can come any time you like.’
‘She’ll want to come quite often, so she can see her new friend Finch,’ said Stephanie, instantly feeling that it wasn’t a very tactful thing to say. Jessica gave her a playful smack, but said nothing to contradict her.
‘That’ll be nice,’ said Thea placidly. She looked at the clock. ‘Don’t the days go fast at this time of year? It feels as though it’s only light for five minutes.’
‘Horrible,’ agreed Jessica.
‘Can we play games after lunch?’ asked Timmy, who had been sitting quietly assembling a jigsaw on one corner of the table.
‘I thought we were all going to walk over to Crossfield,’ said Jessica, with a face that made no secret of the fact that she found the idea of playing games a fairly unappealing prospect.
‘I should phone them first,’ said Thea.
‘Blimey!’ called Digby from just outside the front door. ‘Come and listen to this. Is it what I think it is?’ Female shrieks could be clearly heard, emanating from the big house. ‘Are they killing each other, or what?’
Ant had no answer; fights between women were entirely outside his experience. Or any fights, come to that. In this particular corner of the Cotswolds, disputes were almost never settled by physical combat.
‘Wouldn’t mind if they did, come to think of it,’ his father went on with a sardonic grin. ‘Serve them right.’ In spite of his sense that it was beneath them both, Ant had joined his father outside and both were listening intently. The shrieks were getting louder, if anything. ‘Am I right in thinking they’re coming this way?’ Digby wondered, looking suddenly less amused. ‘Bar the door, son. We don’t want them in here again, do we? They might break things.’
Ant made no move to obey, rightly assuming the remark was not meant seriously. ‘They won’t come here,’ he said.
‘You can’t be sure. Why would they take their battle outside?’ He cocked an ear. ‘You’re right, though. They’re not getting any closer. I think it’s only two of them – Bronya must have had the sense to stay out of it.’
‘It’s her fault for stirring everything up and landing her sister in trouble,’ Ant reminded him. ‘Are there any servants around, I wonder? They’ll probably call the police, if so.’
‘Don’t call them servants,’ Digby objected. ‘They’re staff.’ It was an exchange they’d had before. Digby insisted that servants was a derogatory word, which Ant couldn’t see at all. ‘I expect one or two have stayed on over the holiday. Somebody has to make the beds.’
‘One of them could have killed Rufus, then.’ Ant wondered why he hadn’t thought of that sooner.
‘Very likely,’ said Digby abstractedly. ‘I always thought that woman who does the cooking looked a bit dubious.’ The team of employees whose purpose was to ensure the smooth running of the house were shadowy figures to the Frowse family. None of them ever engaged in conversation, and there were regular new faces seen in the distance, arriving or departing. Digby had focused on the cook because she had been there a long time, and was sometimes to be observed in the kitchen garden that was visible from his bedroom window.
After another minute or two Ant went into the kitchen, deliberately clattering crockery to cover the female voices. He found it increasingly unsettling that grown women should so forget themselves as to make such a noise. The sounds he heard were not screams of pain, but of rage. There were words, shouted at full pitch. There were oh, oh, ohs as if to indicate grief, betrayal, disbelief.
Digby came back in soon afterwards. ‘I think they’re chasing each other round the yard out there, yelling and screaming. That Carla is like a grizzly bear. She’s off her head, if you ask me.’
‘They can’t go on much longer, surely? We might have to do something,’ Ant said, with a worried frown.
‘Not us. I did wonder whether they’re in view of any of the cameras. It’d make a very entertaining film, if so.’
‘They’ve stopped,’ Ant realised. Everything outside had gone suddenly quiet. ‘And I need you to stop, as well. You’re treating it all as a joke, when it seems to me we should probably be feeling seriously scared.’
‘It won’t be long now, son. Once your mother gets back we’ll get a better idea of what comes next.’
‘You think?’
‘I do,’ the man nodded with a certainty that Ant felt wholly unjustified.
Chapter Seventeen
What came next was another visit from the police, who issued a request that the two men refrain from leaving the house until further notice. There had been fresh developments, and formal interviews were imminent. ‘On Boxing Day?’ queried Ant in disbelief. ‘I thought nothing was going to happen before tomorrow?’
‘There’s a fresh forensic team examining the scene,’ they were told. ‘Please stay well away from the area.’
‘You’ll be telling the Blackwood people the same thing, I assume?’ said Digby.
The policeman looked severely down his nose and gave no reply to this.
‘Bound to be,’ said Ant quickly, fearful that his father was intent on alienating the forces of the law – which could do no good whatsoever.
When the officer had gone, Digby blew out his cheeks. ‘Bloody nuisance. Your mother’s going to walk right into the middle of all this, just when we thought we had the day to ourselves.’
There it was again – the implication that his parents understood a whole lot more than he did. ‘What does that mean?’ Ant shouted. ‘Why does it feel as if everything’s been happening behind my back?’
‘Calm down, there’s a good chap. Shouting doesn’t help anything.’ Digby gave a rueful snort. ‘I wonder what they’ll find over at the mansion. For all we know, Carla’s run off leaving both daughters
