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  ‘All that happened a very long time ago.’ His voice, level, unemotional, reached her ears. ‘It was all rather exaggerated.’ The warm glow began to fade; a sensation rose in her as of having reached joyfully out for something precious that had dissolved into mist before her fingers.

  ‘Mrs Bond’s accident wasn’t a long time ago.’ Mildly surprised at her own persistence. Accustomed to the pressing attentions of the male; something of a novelty, being driven to take the initiative. She half smiled at herself as she spoke. ‘I don’t think they exaggerated about that.’ She laughed. ‘Even if they’re not going to give you a medal for it.’

  She wished fervently that Arnold would say something but he merely made an indeterminate sound that might have meant anything. She hesitated. If she wound up the conversation–as he seemed to wish she would–it would very probably be the end of any intimate contact between them; the idea struck her as oddly chilling. Without giving herself any further time to ponder she plunged on.

  ‘I find now I have a little more free time than I’d expected. I managed to deal with all my paperwork over the weekend.’ She gave a tiny shudder of distaste for the inescapable unsubtlety of her words. ‘I could have accepted your invitation after all.’ And he said not a single, solitary word! ‘It was kind of you to think of asking me.’ A slow blush crept up over her cheeks; her forehead throbbed with fire. She could say nothing more, she thought wildly of simply dropping the receiver back on its stand.

  ‘I believe it’s quite a good play,’ Arnold said suddenly. In actual fact he hadn’t the faintest idea of its quality. His mind was a battleground of conflicting emotions. He’d been resigned to her refusal, accepting it as permanent and total. Startled to hear her voice when he’d answered the phone. Momentarily pierced with happiness at the warmth of her tone. Horrified to realize she saw him as some kind of noble figure.

  He saw clearly that she was providing him with an opportunity to renew his invitation. Could he? Dare he? He clutched at delay. ‘I’d like to suggest another evening–now that you find yourself a little freer–but I’m afraid my father’s very ill at the moment. I really don’t feel—’

  ‘Oh, I quite understand,’ she cried on a long trembling breath. ‘I didn’t know. You mustn’t think of leaving him in the evenings, I see that.’

  ‘Later on, perhaps, when he’s better, I could call and have a word with you, we could fix something up.’

  ‘Yes, do.’ She smiled into the phone. ‘I’ll give you a cup of coffee.’ And this time, she thought, washed over by amusement, I’ll actually let you taste your drink. ‘I do hope your father makes a good recovery. I read what they said about him in the paper. He sounds a fine old man.’

  When she replaced the receiver a couple of minutes later she sat down and stared into the fire, feeling at once calm and pleased, as if something had been settled, something had begun. She remembered Owen Yorke holding forth about a ball, vaguely suggesting that she might like a ticket. She wondered if Arnold ever went to a dance; it seemed a trifle unlikely. But perhaps he might be gently coaxed, Owen’s tentative offer might transform itself into a pair of tickets. Owen Yorke, she thought suddenly, seeing his speaking glance. She put up a hand and touched her lips. There was after all, Owen Yorke . . .

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Something very interesting in the evening paper. I’ll show it to you.’ Zena set down her cup and fished up the paper from the floor. She began to search for the bit about Turner.

  ‘What’s that?’ Owen jerked his attention away from the television set.

  ‘It mentions Ruth. She got the job.’ Zena flashed him a look of knowing malice. ‘Not that we need enquire exactly how she set about it.’ She returned to the pages, running her eyes over the columns. ‘Where is it–I thought it was on this page. You’ll never guess who her new boss is. Maurice Turner!’

  ‘Turner?’ Owen frowned. ‘Who’s Maurice Turner?’

  She turned a page impatiently. ‘You remember Maurice Turner. He used to come into Milbourne a lot. Before the war. He had that little sports car.’

  ‘Good heavens, yes.’ Owen laughed. ‘I remember him. And he’s–what did you say? Ruth’s new boss?’

  ‘Yes, it seems he works for British Foods, been with them a long time—’ She broke off. ‘What’s this?’ she asked in a totally different tone, her voice sharp, rising. A cold finger of apprehension laid itself on Owen’s brain. He rose instantly to his feet, putting himself instinctively into the fight-or-flight position, knowing from long and painfully-acquired experience that when Zena spoke like that a wise man didn’t remain seated.

  ‘Emily Bond,’ Zena said on an even higher note. ‘Arnold Pierson.’ Her brows gathered in a fierce frown. ‘Friday evening.’ She flung him a glance full of concentrated thought. ‘Here, in my own house, working here the best part of today and she never said a word about it.’ Her eyes pinioned Owen to the spot; he could almost see the rapid working of her brain. Now if ever was the time to make use of his feet.

  ‘If you’ve finished with your plate.’ He dredged up a mirthless smile, contrived to set his legs in motion. ‘I might as well begin to clear away.’ He got as far as picking up his own cup and saucer before her voice struck out again.

  ‘Leave those things, I haven’t finished yet.’ Friday–she flashed on the screen of her mind an embracing vision of the evening. Emily Bond running off to Mrs Fleming’s. The interview with Arnold. Owen telling her he was going to the club. Coming back pretty late. She set about a rapid piecing together of the jigsaw. What was Arnold doing over there by Mrs Fleming’s shop? Was he carrying out her instructions about following Owen? Or engaged in some ploy of his own?

  ‘Where were you on Friday evening?’ she barked like an examining magistrate.

  ‘I was at the club, of course. I told you.’ Owen measured the space between himself and the door, set himself resolutely in motion, allowing one sentence for each yard to freedom, picking up speed as he saw the door-knob miraculously within touching distance.

  ‘I’ll just take this into the kitchen. Got an abominable headache.’ With his free hand he struck himself on the forehead, blessing, not for the first time, the invention of headaches with their absolute lack of susceptibility to proof. ‘I’ll take a couple of pills and get off to sleep.’ His fingers on the knob. ‘Got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.’ The door open, through it, pulled to behind him.

  From the other side he heard Zena’s angry cry–‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ He banged down the cup and saucer on the first available surface and mounted the stairs two at a time, never slackening his pace until he was safely in his bedroom with the door snicked against intrusion, knowing Zena immobilized, for the moment at least, by weight and a strong disinclination for speedy movement.

  Within three minutes he had ripped off his clothes, snatched on his pyjamas, sprung into bed and extinguished the light. He opened his mouth suddenly and exploded into a long and powerful laugh. Men had been decorated for less.

  Downstairs Zena frowned yet again over the newspaper. Owen needn’t think his precious headache had put paid to the cross-examination. There had been no need to pursue him up the stairs, there was always tomorrow, and the day after that. But she felt a restless need for some kind of action; she tilted back her head, bit her lip, considering. What about ringing Arnold? Demanding his account of Friday evening? Yes, that ought to settle a few points. She glanced at the clock and saw with reluctance that it was getting a little late to phone a house where there was after all a sick old man. First thing in the morning, though, catch him before he left for work.

  Ah–of course! She could ring Neil! They could have an absorbing conversation about Ruth’s promotion and the reappearance of Turner. She levered herself up and went to the phone. Of course Neil couldn’t be expected to remember Turner; Maurice was four or five years older than Neil, who had really been little more than a child in the days when Maurice Turner swooped into Milbourne in his sports car.


  She lit a cigarette and made herself comfortable in the chair by the phone, then she lifted the receiver, confident that Neil would be eager to listen to everything she had to say.

  As soon as Owen opened his eyes next morning he knew what he was going to do. Remove himself from the whole schemozzle for the entire week. He often went away on business trips, buying, selling, creating or maintaining goodwill. Reasonably convenient to depart just now. He pulled at the light cord, glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty.

  Zena wouldn’t be about for some time yet. Pack a suitcase silently, no need to bother about breakfast, get off to the office and deal with one or two pressing matters and then into the car and his foot down on the accelerator.

  He was about to throw back the bedclothes when he remembered Emily Bond. He clicked his tongue in irritation. He definitely had to catch the old girl before Zena had a chance to talk to her. What time did she normally show up at The Sycamores? Assuming of course that she intended to show up at all today. The accident had probably done little to improve her reliability.

  He jumped out of bed as an inspiration struck him. Of course! All he had to do was drive over to her cottage, he would either meet her on her way to the bus or, if she had decided not to go to work, call at the house and speak to her.

  In a little under half an hour he had washed and shaved, dressed and packed his bag; he tiptoed down the stairs and let himself silently out into the dark chill of the morning. He had left no note informing Zena of his business trip; his secretary could phone her later in the morning, when he was well away, making mention of urgent matters suddenly arisen. It struck him all at once that Zena would soon realize he had formed the intention of departing long before he reached the office–how else explain the fact that he had no need to return home to pick up some clothes?

  He lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. He’d be away the whole week; by that time she’d have forgotten the trifling detail. He began to hum a tune as he sent the car swiftly along the road in the direction of Emily’s little cottage.

  Arnold Pierson was coming downstairs a few paces behind Sarah when the phone rang in the hall. He halted with one hand on the banister rail as she went forward to pick up the receiver.

  ‘Oh–it’s you, Mrs Yorke.’ Sarah turned and flashed a glance at Arnold. ‘I was just about to phone you myself.’

  ‘I want to speak to your brother,’ Zena said briskly. ‘Is he there?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll be a little late getting in to work this morning.’ Sarah firmly continued to say what she had to say. ‘My stepfather died in the night.’ Her voice wavered. ‘Yes, it was rather sudden in the end. But it was quite peaceful.’ She put her free hand up to her eyes. ‘Was it something urgent you wished to speak to Arnold about?’ she asked when Zena had finished her conventional murmurs. ‘There is, as you can imagine, a great deal to be seen to.’ She raised her eyebrows at Arnold in a look of enquiry. He shook his head and spread both hands in a gesture of refusal.

  ‘Well, I would like to speak to him.’ Zena couldn’t at once accept the fact that she could scarcely in all decency fire a succession of questions at Arnold just now.

  ‘Actually I don’t think he’s available at this moment,’ Sarah said. ‘I dare say it can wait until . . . all this . . . is over.’ Really, she thought, that woman! Absolutely no sense of what is fitting. ‘I’ll go into the shop about ten, Arnold is taking time off to deal with things.’ No point in both of them being away from work. She’d be glad to be compelled to occupy her mind. ‘I’m sure you’ll understand if I leave early or come in late during the next few days.’

  I’m free of you now, Arnold thought; the notion came to him flatly, without emotion. He need never again as long as he lived pay Zena any attention whatever. He had a brief flash of Linda’s face, her hazel eyes. He stroked his jaw. I suppose I ought to phone her, let her know about Father, I wouldn’t like her to hear it casually from a customer. And telling her would create a sense of family between them, a hint of intimacy. His fingers pressed his lips; he was conscious again of a dull feeling of vacuum, of deep and permanent loss.

  ‘Yes, of course, that will be perfectly all right.’ A notion of obligation, fitting behaviour, nudged at Zena. ‘Would you like me to go down to the shop?’ A marked absence of enthusiasm in her tone.

  ‘That’s very kind of you but there’s really no need.’ Sarah managed with difficulty to restrain an abrupt refusal. ‘It’s only a question of an hour or so from time to time. And the head saleswoman is very capable. I’m sure you must have a great many calls on your time.’ Be a pity to have to cut down on the naps and siestas, she thought sourly, laying down the receiver a few moments later.

  And now–she squared her shoulders and looked up at Arnold. ‘We’ve a lot to do,’ she said. ‘We’d better begin.’

  ‘I think that’s more or less everything,’ Owen said aloud. He ran his eye over the page in his desk diary, making a final check. No need to ring Linda yet about the ticket for the ball; that would keep till he got back. Something a little too formal and businesslike about a phone call so early in the day.

  As if in response to his thought the phone shrilled beside his hand. He picked it up, half expecting to hear her voice. But it was Arnold Pierson, ringing to say he’d have to take a few days off work, his father had died.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Owen said with genuine sympathy, though without any very great sense of surprise. So old Walter had gone at last . . . one never heard without emotion of the passing of someone known all one’s life, there was always this feeling of the links that bound one to the past, to the carefree days of childhood, being relentlessly severed, one by one. My father will be upset to learn of it, he thought, deeply startled a fraction of a moment later to remember that his father had been dead for over thirty years.

  ‘The funeral will probably be on Thursday,’ Arnold said. ‘We very much hope of course that you and Mrs Yorke will be able to come.’

  ‘I’m afraid I shall be away, I’m going off on a business trip, I won’t be back at all this week.’ He must phone the florist as soon as Arnold had rung off, order a handsome wreath. ‘But I’m sure Zena will wish to be there. I’ll let her know right away.’ Awkward, that; he had no wish to speak to her personally but it didn’t seem decent to leave it to his secretary.

  ‘She already knows, Sarah spoke to her. I shall be able to come into work on Friday as usual.’

  ‘No need for that.’ Owen sent his mind rapidly over dates. Nothing very urgent at the moment and the audit wasn’t due till the first of March. ‘Take Friday off as well, make a whole week of it, I’m sure you’ll need it.’

  Zena sat on the stool in front of her dressing table, tugging a comb crossly through her disordered locks. She didn’t yet know that Owen had taken himself off for the week.

  From downstairs she heard the sudden drone of the vacuum cleaner. Ah–Emily had seen fit to show up, then. She pushed back her stool and stood up, her face pleased and animated. Now she could get to the bottom of that business about the accident.

  In the sitting room Emily held the snaking hose in one hand and with the other guided a sectioned metal tube with a nozzle at the end of it over the floral carpet. Her brain was in a state of conflict.

  Mr Yorke had banged on the door of her cottage while she was still buckling herself into massively-reinforced stays which would have done much to put at rest the mind of a knight of old departing on a Crusade. He had made it extremely and repetitively clear to her that as far as Mrs Yorke was concerned he had never been anywhere near the accident; he had made highly ungentlemanly references to valuable items of food missing from the fridge at The Sycamores.

  Just before banging his way out again he had however slapped down a couple of pound notes on the table, causing Emily now to look back on his visit as more in the nature of a belated call from Father Christmas than anything else. Indeed it was beginning to occur to her that the accident was by far t
he most fortunate thing–in the way of money–that had happened to her in a long while.

  As she directed the carpet nozzle under an easy chair she caught sight of a folded newspaper on the lowest shelf of an open bookcase. That would be it–last night’s paper.

  She switched off the cleaner and bent down. Sure enough the paper was folded so that the bit about the accident was staring right up at her. She sat down and began to read with avid attention.

  The door burst open. Zena stood on the threshold, glaring at her.

  ‘Get up!’ she cried. ‘Put that paper down!’ Emily did as she was told. ‘And now, there are one or two questions I want to ask you.’ Emily stood with her hands folded and her head lowered. Here it comes, she thought, stiffening her old limbs to meet the challenge.

  ‘In the first place, why did you say nothing to me yesterday about what happened on Friday evening?’

  ‘Well, you never asked.’

  ‘Of course I never asked! How could I? I didn’t know anything about it! The point is, why didn’t you tell me about it?’

  ‘I thought you knew. And when you didn’t ask I thought–’ a rather good little martyred sniff–‘you weren’t interested. Never was one to bore other folk with me troubles,’ she added with brilliant inspiration.

  ‘How could I know? It wasn’t in Saturday’s paper.’

  ‘I fancied Mr—’ Emily broke off in horror at what she had so nearly come out with. Only went to show how careful you had to be, get a little confident and you got carried away.

  ‘Mr Who?’ asked Zena with triumphant emphasis.

  Emily smiled; her brain made a wonderful recovery. ‘Mr Pierson. I fancied Mr Pierson would have told you. Knowing how friendly you are with him.’ Oh, that was good, that was.

  Zena jabbed a finger in the air. ‘You were going to say Mr Yorke. I know, don’t try to lie to me.’