To the hilt

CHAPTER ELEVEN

My mother wept.

I held her tight while she shook with near-silent sobs, the grief deep and terrible.

I wondered if she had ever cried in the dark for my father, privately broken up under the public composure. I'd been too young then to be of understanding comfort to her, and also I'd been too immersed in my own feelings.

This time, when I arrived at Park Crescent, she turned to me on every level, and there was no doubt at all that her emotions were intense and overwhelming.

From life-long habit, though, after the first revealing half-hour, she stiffened her whole body, damped all movements, powdered her face and presented, at least to the world if no longer to me, the outward semblance of serenity.

Ivan was not in the house.

When she could talk, she told me that at bedtime the previous evening she'd heard Ivan cry out, and she'd found him lying on the stairs.

'Such pain…'

'Don't talk,' I said.

She told me at intervals.

She had been in her nightclothes, and he in his. She didn't know why he had been downstairs. There was no need for him to go down to the kitchen for anything. He had water and a glass beside his bed, and there was the tray of other drinks in his study. He hadn't told her why he was coming upstairs. He seemed to be out of breath, as if he'd been hurrying, but why should he have been hurrying, it was after ten o'clock?

He had said her name, 'Viv… Vivienne…'

I squeezed my mother's hand.

She said, 'I loved him.'

'I know.'

A long pause. She had been very frightened. They had given Wilfred the night off because Ivan had been so much better. They had said they wouldn't need him much longer. He had left the box of heart-attack remedies at hand on Ivan's bedside table and my mother had run to fetch them. She had put one of the tiny nitroglycerine tablets under Ivan's tongue, and although he had tried to cling to her she had run to the telephone and had miraculously reached Keith Robbis-ton at his home, and he had said he would send an ambulance immediately.

She had put a second pill under Ivan's tongue, and then a third.

They hadn't stopped the pain.

She had sat on the stairs, holding him. When the front door bell had rung she had had to go down to answer it as there was no one else in the house. The ambulancemen had been very quick. They had carried a stretcher upstairs and had given him an injection and oxygen, and had put him on the stretcher and had fastened straps round him and carried him down.

She was wearing only her nightdress.

The men were kind to her. They said that they were taking him just along the road to the London Clinic, as he had been a patient there and Dr Robbiston had arranged it. They were a private firm. They gave my mother a card.

'A card,' she said blankly.

She had gone down the stairs with Ivan, holding his hand.

Keith Robbiston had arrived.

He had waited while she put some clothes on, and he had driven her to the Clinic.

A long, long pause.

'I wasn't with him when he died,' she said.

I squeezed her hand.

'Keith said they did everything possible.'

'I'm sure they did.'

'He died before they could get him to the operating theatre.'

I simply held her.

'What am I going to do?'

It was the unanswerable cry, I guessed, of all the bereaved. It wasn't until the next day, Monday, that Patsy swept in. She wasn't pleased to see me but seemed to realise my presence was inevitable.

She was brisk, decisive, the manager. Her grief for her father, and to be charitable one had to believe her own description of her feelings as 'distraught' (that excellent but over-used word) were chiefly expressed by a white tissue clutched valiantly ready for stemming tears.

'Darling Father,' she announced, 'will be cremated…' she applied the tissue gently to her nose, '… on Thursday at Cockfosters crematorium, where they have a slot at ten o'clock owing to someone else's postponement. It's so difficult to arrange this sort of thing, you would be appalled… but I agreed to that, so I hope, Vivienne, that you don't mind the early hour? And of course I've asked everyone to come here afterwards, and I've booked a caterer for drinks and a buffet lunch…'

She went on talking about the arrangements and the announcements in the papers and the seating in the chapel, and she'd notified the Jockey Club and invited Ivan's colleagues to the wake; and it seemed she had done most of all this that morning, while I had been seeing to breakfast. I had to admit to relief not to be doing it all myself, and my mother, who seemed mesmerised, simply said, 'Thank you, Patsy,' over and over.

'Do you want flowers?' Patsy demanded of her. 'I've put "no flowers" in the announcement to the papers. Just a wreath from you on the coffin, don't you think? And one from me, of course. Do you want me to arrange it? I've asked the caterers to bring flowers here for the buffet table, of course… And I'll just go down now and talk to Lois about cleaning the silver…'

My mother looked exhausted when Patsy left.

'She loved him,' she said weakly, as if defending her.

I nodded. 'All the activity is her way of showing it.'

'I don't know how you understand her, when she's always so beastly to you.'

I shrugged. No amount of understanding would make her a friend.

We struggled through the next few days somehow. I cooked for my mother; Edna tossed her head. When my mother asked forlornly if I thought she should wear a black hat to the funeral, because she couldn't face shopping, I went out and bought her one, and pinned a big white silk rose to its sweeping brim so that she looked good enough to paint, though I just refrained from saying so.

We went one afternoon to see Ivan in his coffin at the undertaker. He looked pale and peaceful; my mother kissed his forehead and said on the way home how icy cold he was; nothing like life; and I didn't tell her that it wasn't the chill of death but of efficient refrigeration.

For Thursday morning I engaged a car with a chauffeur to take the two of us to the crematorium and back again. I had personally asked a fair number of Ivan's friends and business people to turn up at Park Crescent even if they couldn't face the crematorium but, in the event, the old boy drew a full house at Cockfosters, an eloquent and moving tribute to a good man.

'All the brewery people are here,' my mother murmured. 'All the workpeople!'

They had come in a chartered bus, we found, and were working extra hours to make up.

The racing people had come. Many bigwigs and owners. Several lads from her yard accompanied Emily.

Himself came, with his countess. Jamie came, ever cheerful, with his pretty wife.

Patsy, with husband and daughter, received everyone graciously.

My mother looked ethereal and shed no tears.

Chris Young showed up at my shoulder, dressed as the secretary, light-hearted about his task of guarding my back against Surtees.

Patsy, at her administrative best, had briefed the presiding cleric thoroughly, so that he spoke knowledgeably and well about Ivan's life; and Himself, delivering a eulogy, quoted, to my surprise, from the translation of Bede's Death Song: 'No one is wiser in thought than he needs to be, in considering, before his departure, what will be adjudged to his soul, of good or evil, after his death-day,' he said, and declared that Ivan Westering had behaved on earth with such uprightness that only good would be adjudged to him now, after his death-day.

All in all, impressive.

The grand drawing-room at Park Crescent was packed afterwards with mourners, and I had to acknowledge that Patsy had been far more accurate in her estimation than I would have been. The caterers nevertheless sent their van away early for reinforcements.

Tobias Tollright came, and also Margaret Morden. I asked them both to linger for a while after the crush had cleared to discuss a brewery plan of action, and I was reminded triumphantly by Desmond Finch that all my powers of attorney had been cancelled by Ivan's death, and nothing I might say or do mattered any more in Ivan's or the brewery's affairs.

Oliver Grantchester made his large presence benevolently felt both at the crematorium and Park Crescent, behaving rather as if Ivan had been his own personal achievement; as if he, Oliver, had been responsible for all Ivan's good decisions and successes. 'Of course Ivan regularly took my advice,' I heard him saying, and he saw me listening and gave me a sideways Patsy-inspired glare of disapproval. I had no need to ask him to stay on for a conference; he showed every sign of wanting to conduct one.

I had invited Lois and Edna to join the gathering, but they stayed obstinately below stairs. Wilfred took a brief glass of farewell champagne, spoke a few words to Patsy and descended to join them. Wilfred thought I hadn't appreciated his services sufficiently: Edna had told me Wilfred thought it was my fault he hadn't been there when Ivan had needed him. The fact that I'd been in Scotland didn't excuse me.

Emily's lads ate and drank with an eye on the scales, made awkward but genuine little speeches to my mother, and left Emily behind when they departed.

Emily eyed Chris with obvious speculation, not doubting his/her gender but wondering if the tall leggy dark-haired presence in black tights, short inappropriate skirt and baggy black sweater, were a serious girlfriend, in view of the glue that kept her ever and only a short pace away from my side.

Chris wore white frilled shirt-cuffs over the thick wrists, and a small discreet white frill round his neck. He carried a small black handbag. Tobias attempted to chat him up. They could both hardly speak for laughing. 'This is a funeral, for God's sake,' I told them.

Keith Robbiston dashed in, glancing at his watch. He kissed my mother's cheek and murmured comfort quietly into her ear, so that she smiled at him gratefully. He shook my hand, nodding, and made a sort of sketchy bow to Patsy, who looked forbidding, as if Ivan's death were the doctor's fault. She had said, in fact, during the past few days, that clearly Ivan should have stayed in the Clinic and been shielded from stress, though she hadn't said it when he was alive, and had herself generated a good deal of the stress.

Keith Robbiston shook hands with Oliver Grantchester, their mutual disregard stiff in their spines, then, duty done, the doctor gave my mother another cheek-to-cheek fondness and hurried away.

I wandered round the room, thanking people for coming, carrying a glass of champagne that I didn't feel like drinking.

The champagne was good. So were the canape snacks. Patsy had ordered the best.

There was a woman standing apart in a far corner of the room, talking to no one and looking a little lost, so I drifted that way to draw her in.

'You have no champagne,' I said.

'It's all right.'

She was undemanding and not at home among Ivan's friends. She wore a tweed skirt, a shiny pale blue blouse, a brown cardigan, flat shoes and pearls. Sixty, or thereabouts.

'Take my champagne,' I said, holding it out to her. 'I haven't drunk any. I'll get some more.'

'Oh no, I couldn't.' She took the glass, though, and sipped, eyeing me over the rim.

'I'm Lady Westering's son,' I said.

'Yes, I know. I've seen you coming and going.' Then, seeing my surprise, added, 'I live next door. I'm the caretaker there, you see. I've just popped in to pay my respects to Sir Ivan. Lady Westering invited me. Always so kind to me, both of them. Really nice people.'

'Yes.'

'I'm ever so sorry Sir Ivan died. Did he find what he was looking for?'

'Er…' I said. 'What was he looking for?'

'Ever so distressed he was, poor man.'

'Was he?' I asked, only half interested. 'When was that?'

'Why, the night he died, of course.'

She sensed in me the sudden acute sharpening of attention and began to look nervous.

'It's all right, Mrs… er…' I assured her, calming us both. 'I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't know your name.'

'Hall. Connie Hall.'

'Mrs Hall. Please do tell me about the night Sir Ivan died.'

'I was walking my little dog, you see, same as I always do before going to bed.'

'Yes, of course,' I said, nodding.

Reassured, she went on, 'When I got back to the house - next door, that is, of course - there was Sir Ivan down in the road, and in his pyjamas and dressing-gown poor man, and frantic, there's no other word for it. Frantic.''

'Mrs Hall,' I said intensely, 'what was he frantic about?"

She began to lose her nervousness and to enjoy telling me her tale.

'It was ever so unlike him, you see. I mean, I never thought of him in pyjamas like everyone else, and I didn't recognise him at first and told him pretty sharply to take himself off and leave the black plastic rubbish bags alone, because he was scrabbling about in them, and it wasn't until he turned and spoke to me that I realised who he was, and he said, "Oh, Mrs Hall, when do they collect the rubbish?" I mean, it was after ten o'clock at night! So I told him they collected the bags every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning - we have a good service round here, this being a wealthy sort of place and not a once-a-week-if-you're-lucky back street - and he was tearing open some of the bags with his fingernails… and looking inside them… he was ever so… upset… and I asked him if I could help him, and… and…'

Connie Hall stopped, herself distressed at the memory, and emptied her glass.

I pivoted one-eighty degrees, aware of Chris close behind me, and fielded his full glass of bubbles.

'Hey!' he objected.

'Get some more.'

I turned back to Connie Hall and exchanged Chris's glass for the empty one she held.

'You'll get me tiddly,' she said.

'What was Sir Ivan looking for in the black bags?' I asked. 'Did he tell you?'

'I mean,' she said, 'it didn't make sense, him emptying some of the bags like that.'

I waited, smiling vaguely, while she sipped.

'He said he was looking for an empty box,' she frowned. 'I asked him what empty box and he said Lois must have thrown it away. He was so fearfully upset…"

'What sort of box?'

'I think he said a tissue-box. I think that's what he said. But why should anyone worry so much about an empty tissue-box?'

Dear God, I thought: what had been written on it?

I said, 'Have you told my mother about this?'

'No.' She shook her grey-haired head. 'I didn't want to upset her. Sir Ivan left all the rubbish just lying there and went in through his front door, which was open, of course, and said he would look in the kitchen, and I said goodnight to him and went in myself with my little dog, and it was a terrible shock the next day when I heard Sir Ivan had died.'

'It must have been… I suppose Sir Ivan didn't tell you why he was looking for the box?'

'No, but he was sort of talking to himself. I think it was something about Lois always moving things.'

'Nothing else?'

'No, poor man. He can't have been himself, can he, poor Sir Ivan, to be scrabbling about in a rubbish bag in his nightclothes?'

'Well… Thank you for telling me, Mrs Hall. Would you like some smoked salmon?'

I collected a plate of goodies for her and found her another Park Crescent neighbour to talk to, but later on I saw her talking to Patsy, and from her gestures and her pleasure in the drama I suspected she was telling her the same story, and felt a deep thrust of unease, but wasn't quite sure why.

Surtees stood beside Patsy, listening, and when he saw me looking at him he gave me a stare of such high-voltage malevolence that Chris said 'Jeeze' into my ear.

Maddened and murderous, I thought. It wasn't the restrained and sensible who sought to kill. Surtees might, to my mind, be a fool, but I felt him also to be as unstable and volatile as hydrogen.

Himself also fielded Surtees's raw exhibition of an obsessional hatred fast ballooning past Patsy's enduring antagonism and, startled, asked, 'Whatever did you do to deserve that?'

'Probably didn't care being shut in the box in Emily's yard.'

'In retrospect, a bad move.'

'Mm.' I shrugged. 'It can't be helped.'

'Introduce me to your friend,' my uncle said, looking at Chris.

'Oh… er… Lord Kinloch,' I said to Chris, and to my uncle, 'Christina.'

Himself said, 'How do you do?'

Chris shook his head, silently, though shooting a frilled cuff with panache. My uncle looked at me quizzically. I smiled back without explanation. Chris stuck to my back.

The room gradually cleared until only those close to Ivan and his affairs were left. There was to be no formal reading of his Will as its general provisions had been much discussed and were well-known - the brewery to Patsy, everything else to my mother for her lifetime, reverting to Patsy on her death. For all her fears, Ivan had never swerved from his promises to his daughter, though all she displayed to me was triumph, not apology.

Oliver Grantchester who, true to his loud-voiced authoritative manner, had taken it as his natural province to orchestrate the semi-business meeting, cleared his throat noisily and said, 'I say, I say' a few times until everyone was listening. 'I suggest we all sit down,' he said, 'and discuss the immediate future.'

Everyone acted on his suggestion, and I looked round at the haphazard circle of sofas, chairs and footstools, and at my mother, with me on one side of her and Emily on the other, then at Patsy and at Surtees (scowling) and Xenia (fidgeting), and at Margaret Morden and at Tobe, at Himself (alone, having sent his countess off with James and his wife), at Oliver (in charge), at Desmond Finch (smirking) and finally at Chris, beside me.

Chris crossed his long legs in their black tights, showing a stretch of thigh. The legs ended below the ankles in black patent medium-heeled court shoes. ('Don't worry, I can run in them,' he'd said.)

Oliver stared at him with displeasure. 'You may leave now,' he said.

I started to say, 'I want him to stay…' and almost choked on the 'him', turning it to 'her' at the last fraction of credibility. 'I asked Christina to stay,' I repeated. 'She is my guest in my mother's house.'

No one protested further. Tobe put his face in his hands. His body shook.

Oliver said with satisfaction, 'We all know that the power of attorney that Ivan gave to Alexander expired with his death. Alexander has no authority from now on to conduct any business for Ivan's estate. Patsy, indeed, forbids it.'

Patsy nodded vigorously. Surtees sneered. Xenia, not old enough to understand the words, simply transmitted secondhand hate.

I said mildly, 'There's the codicil…'

Oliver interrupted, 'Ivan may have written a codicil, but it can't be found. We can assume he tore it up, as he suggested he would.'

'He didn't tear it up. He gave it to me for safekeeping.'

'Yes, we know that,' Oliver said impatiently, 'and he made you give it back again. We were all there. He made you give it back.'

'It isn't in this house,' Patsy said.

'Have you searched?' I asked with interest.

She glared.

'It isn't in my office,' Grantchester said smoothly. 'We can safely assume it no longer exists.'

'No, we can't,' I said. 'Ivan gave it back to me again later, and I have got it here today.'

Both Patsy and Grantchester looked furiously disconcerted. My mother was nodding, 'Ivan gave it back to Alexander,' and no one else seemed to mind one way or another.

'Give it to me, then, and I'll read it out,' Grantchester said.

I hesitated. 'I think,' I said politely, 'that I'll give it to Tobias to read out. If you don't mind, Tobe?'

He had with difficulty stopped laughing. He said he would be of any service he could.

I put a hand out towards Chris, who opened his black leather handbag and took out the codicil in its envelope. Also in the handbag, I knew, were a scent-laden lace handkerchief, a lipstick and a thoroughly illegal set of brass knuckles. It wasn't only Tobe who had trouble with giggles.

I took the envelope and crossed to Tobias, saying, 'Ivan signed and dated this twice across the stick-down flap. You can verify that I haven't tampered with it.'

Soberly Tobias examined the envelope, reported on its secure state, and ripped it open, pulling out the single sheet of paper inside.

He read the introduction, then:

'I bequeath my racehorses to Emily Jane Kinloch, known as Emily Jane Cox.'

Emily gasped, wide-eyed, moved beyond tears.

Tobias continued, 'I bequeath the chalice known as King Alfred's Gold Cup to my friend Robert, Earl of Kinloch.'

Himself looked stricken dumb.

Tobias read, 'I appoint Alexander Kinloch, my stepson, to be my executor, in conjunction with my two executors already appointed in my Will, namely Oliver Grantchester and Robert, Earl of Kinloch.'

Patsy stood up, stiffly angry, and demanded, 'What does that mean, appointing Alexander as executor?'

'It means,' Himself told her neutrally, 'that Alexander has a duty to help bring your father's estate to probate.'

'Are you telling me he still has any say in the brewery's affairs?'

'Yes. Until your father's estate is wound up, he does.'

'It's impossible.' She turned to the lawyer. 'Oliver! Say he's wrong.'

Grantchester said regretfully, 'If the codicil was properly drawn and witnessed, then Lord Kinloch is correct.'

Tobias stood and walked round the room, showing the paper to everyone in turn. 'It is written in Sir Ivan's own handwriting,' he said.

'But the witnesses?' Patsy demanded, before he reached her. 'Who were they?

'The witnesses,' my mother said, 'were Wilfred, his nurse, and Lois, our cleaner. I watched them witness Ivan's signature. It was all done properly. Ivan was very careful.'

Patsy stared long at the paper. 'He had no right…'

'He had every right,' Himself said. 'Alexander will work with Mr Grantchester and me to do the best we can for a good resolution to your father's affairs. Why do you not acknowledge that the continued existence of the brewery today is altogether thanks to Alexander's efforts, in conjunction with Mr Tollright and Mrs Morden…' he gave them one of his little bows, '… and why do you not realise that your father knew what he was doing when he put his trust in Alexander's integrity…?'

'Don't,' I said, trying to stop him.

'You never stand up for yourself, Al.'

'Let it be.'

He shook his head at me.

I reflected that Ivan's trust had wandered in and out a bit, and also that he'd trusted Norman Quorn, but anything that might dampen Patsy's animosity, I supposed, couldn't be bad.

Oliver Grantchester moved smoothly back to his intended overview, this time accepting the codicil's provisions as fact, whatever he privately thought of them.

'The horse Golden Malt-' he began.

'Will run in the King Alfred Gold Cup a week on Saturday,' Emily said firmly.

Grantchester raised his eyebrows and said, 'No one seems to know where the horse is.'

Surtees stood up convulsively and pointed at me in accusation. 'He knows where it is.' He was unnecessarily shouting. 'Make him tell you.'

Himself said, 'After probate the horse will belong to Emily. Until then it can run in races by order of the executors.'

Surtees obstinately shouted, 'It belongs to the brewery. Alexander stole it. I'll see he goes to jail.'

Even the lawyer began to lose patience with him. He said, 'Whether Mrs Cox or the brewery is ultimately judged to be the owner, the executors can still authorise the horse to race, as it may lose value as an asset if it doesn't, for which the executors might be held accountable. If Mrs Cox can assure us that she can produce the horse at Cheltenham while complying with all racing regulations, then as executors, Lord Kinloch, Alexander and I will, at the appropriate time, declare him a runner.'

Well, bravo, I thought.

Surtees seethed.

Emily said sweetly that she was sure she could abide by all the regulations.

Surtees sat down like a cocked volcano, steaming, ever ready to erupt.

'Now,' Oliver Grantchester said, moving along the agenda majestically, 'The prize, the King Alfred chalice. Where is it?'

No one answered.

My mother said eventually, almost weakly, 'Ivan never sends… oh dear, sent… the real chalice to the races. It's far too valuable to risk. But he had several smaller replicas made only a few years ago. There must be one or two left. A replica is given to the winning owner each year.'

Desmond Finch made throat-clearing noises and flashed the silver frames of his glasses as he reported that two replicas remained in the locked glass-fronted cabinet in Sir Ivan's office.

'That's the trophy settled, then,' Himself said cheerfully, but Patsy told him with spite, 'Your precious Alexander stole the real one. Make him give it back. And whatever my father said, the chalice belongs to the brewery. It belongs to me.'

'I'm sure,' Himself said with courteous worldliness, 'that we can come to a civilised solution to our differences out of court. It would be so unwise, don't you agree, to hang out the brewery's private troubles on the public washing line? That's why your father thought it best to swallow in silence the frightful financial losses. He wouldn't, I feel sure, want you to discard out of pique the fortune he worked so hard to give you.'

I didn't look at Patsy. Her hatred of me always drastically interfered with her common sense. I'd taken so many insults from her over the years that it was only for Ivan's memory that I now cared what happened to the brewery. I wanted to go back to the mountains. It was like a physical ache.

Oliver Grantchester droned on, a committee man to his fingertips. The executors would be doing this and the executors would be doing that, and as my uncle made no protest or suggestion, nor did I.

Tobias finally broke up the session by parking a chewed toothpick and apologising to my mother that he had a plane to catch: he was off to Paris for the weekend.

'I'll be back on Monday,' he said to me. 'In the office on Tuesday, if you have any brilliant ideas.'

Patsy, overhearing, demanded to know what I could possibly have brilliant ideas about.

'Finding the brewery's lost millions,' he said and, correctly interpreting and anticipating her automatic denigration, added, 'and you should pray, Mrs Benchmark, that he does have a brilliant idea, because those lost millions are yours now, don't you understand? See you,' he finished, lightly punching my arm. 'Don't play on the railway lines.'

When Tobias had gone, Chris asked me what I wanted him to do.

'Follow Surtees,' I said promptly. 'I want to know where he is.'

Chris looked down at his clothes. 'He knows what I look like.'

'Go up two floors,' I said. Turn right up there. You'll find my room. Take what you need. There's money on the chest of drawers. Take it.'

He nodded and quietly left the room, and only Emily, appearing at my elbow, seemed to notice.

'Are you bedding Christina?' she asked blandly. 'She knows you well.'

I nearly laughed but made it a smile. 'She's not my bed mate and never will be.'

'She never takes her eyes off you.'

'How's Golden Malt?'

Tine. You're exasperating.'

'Has Surtees bothered you?'

Emily glanced at him where he stood across the room talking to Grantchester and stabbing the air with a vigorous forefinger. 'He hasn't found the horse. He won't, either. I've driven over to Jimmy Jennings's place twice. It's all quiet there. And actually I think the change of scene is doing the horse good. He was really on his toes two days ago.'

'He's yours now.'

She blinked hard. 'Did you know Ivan was going to do that?'

I nodded. 'He told me.'

'I liked him.'

It seemed natural to me to put my arms round her. She hugged me back.

'Jimmy showed me your painting of the jockey,' she said. 'He told me you gave him courage.'

I silently kissed her hair. We had said everything we needed to. She stepped back, composed, and went to comfort my mother.

People gradually left. Himself (positively grinning) patted me on the shoulder, told me he would be in residence in his London home for the following ten days, asserted his intention of going to Cheltenham races and kissed my mother's cheek affectionately, calling her 'my dear, dear Vivienne'.

Emily waved goodbye. Fussy Desmond Finch twittered away. Margaret Morden paid her respects. Oliver Grantchester ponderously closed his briefcase.

Chris Young ran lightly down the stairs, crossed past the open door of the drawing-room and left quickly by the front door.

'Who was that?' asked my mother unsuspiciously, watching through the window as the fleeting backview of cropped light brown hair, loose jacket, rolled up jeans and too-big trainers made a fast sloppy shuffle out of sight.

'One of the caterers?' I casually guessed.

She lost interest. 'Did you talk to Connie Hall from next door?'

'Yes, I did.'

She looked distressed. 'Patsy told me what Connie Hall said about Ivan searching the rubbish bags.'

Patsy would. I said, 'Mrs Hall didn't want to upset you.'

My mother said unhappily, 'I think Patsy has gone down to the kitchen to talk to Lois about it.'

I glanced round the room. Surtees, Xenia, Grantchester still, but no Patsy.

'Let's go down, then,' I suggested, and moved her with me below stairs, where Lois was tossing her head and bridling with umbrage at any insinuation that her work wasn't perfect. Edna stood beside her, nodding rhythmically in support.

The caterers, spread all around the extensive room, were packing away their equipment. I threaded a path through them, my mother following, and fetched up by Patsy's side in time to hear Lois saying indignantly, '… of course I threw the box away. There were only a couple of tissues left in it, which I used. I gave Sir Ivan a fresh box, what's wrong with that?

'Didn't you check whether anything was written on the bottom of the box you threw away?'

'Of course not,' Lois said scornfully. 'Whoever looks on the bottom of empty tissue-boxes?'

'But you must have known my father wrote on the bottom of a tissue-box all the time.'

'Why should I know that?'

'You kept moving his notepad onto the desk, out of his reach.'

Patsy was right, of course, but predictably (like most legislation) she achieved the opposite result to that intended.

Lois inflated her lungs and stuck out her considerable frontage, her hoity-toity level at boiling-over point. 'Sir Ivan never complained,' she announced with self-righteousness, 'and if you're implying some stupid tissue-box gave him a heart attack and that it's my fault I'll… I'll… I'll consult my lawyer!'

She tossed her head grandly. Everyone knew she didn't have a lawyer. Even Patsy wasn't fool enough to point it out.

My mother, looking exhausted, said soothingly, 'Of course it wasn't your fault, Lois.' Turning to go, she stopped and said to me, 'I think I'll go up to my sitting-room. Alexander, would you bring me some tea?'

'Of course.'

'Patsy…' My mother hesitated, '… thank you, dear, for arranging everything so well. I couldn't have done it. Ivan would have been so pleased.'

She went slowly and desolately out of the kitchen and Patsy spoiled the moment by giving me the grim glare of habit.

'Go on, say it,' she said. 'You could have done it better.'

'No, I couldn't. It was a brilliantly managed funeral, and she's right, Ivan would have been proud.' I meant it sincerely, which she didn't believe.

She said bitterly over her shoulder, stalking away, 'I can do without your sarcasm,' and Edna, touching my arm, said kindly, 'You go on up, I'll make Lady Westering's tea.'

Lois, in unspent pique, slammed a few pots together to make a noise. She had been Patsy's appointee and, I guessed, Patsy's informant as to my comings and goings in that house, but she was discovering, as everyone did in the end, that Patsy's beauty and charm were questionable pointers to her core nature.

I followed her up the stairs to where my mother was bidding goodbye on the doorstep to Oliver Grantchester and, after him, to Patsy, Surtees and Xenia.

A taxi cruised past slowly on the road outside. Chris Young didn't look our way out of the window, but I saw his profile clearly. I wouldn't have known how to begin to follow Surtees, but when Chris was trying he seldom lost him. Since the dust-up in Emily's yard, Surtees hadn't often left home without a tail.

I went up to my mother's sitting-room where she soon joined me, followed by Edna with the tea. When Edna had gone I poured the hot liquid and squeezed lemon slices and handed the tea as she liked it to a woman who looked frail and spent and unable to answer questions.

She told me what I wanted to know, however, without my asking.

'You're bursting to know if I saw what Ivan wrote on that terrible box of tissues. Do you really think he was frantic to find it? I can't bear it, Alexander, I would have looked for the box, if he'd told me. But we'd kissed goodnight… he didn't say anything then about the box. I'm certain it wasn't in his mind. He'd been so much better… calmer… saying he relied on your strength… we were truly happy that evening…'

'Yes.'

'Connie Hall didn't say anything about Ivan being in the street, not until today.'

'She would have caused you pain if she had.'

She drank the tea and said slowly, reluctantly, 'Whatever was written on the box of tissues… I wrote it.'

'My dearest Ma…'

'But I don't remember what it was. I haven't given it a thought. I wish I'd known…'

The cup rattled in its saucer. I took them from her and kneeled beside her.

'I wish he was here' she said.

I waited through the inconsolable bout of grief. I knew, after four days, that it would sweep through her like a physical disturbance, making her tremble, and then would subside back into a general state of misery.

'Someone telephoned - it was a woman,' she said, 'and she wanted to speak to Ivan, and he was in the bathroom or something, and I said he would phone her back, and you know how there was never a notepad beside the phone, so I wrote what she said on the back of the box, like Ivan does, and I told him… but…' She stopped, trying to remember, and shook her head. 'I didn't think it was important.'

'It probably wasn't,' I said.

'But if he went down to the street to find it…'

'Well… when did the woman phone? What time of day?'

She thought. 'She phoned in the morning, when Ivan was dressing. He did phone her back, but she was out, I think. There was no reply.'

'And Lois was cleaning?'

'Yes. She always comes on Saturday mornings, just to tidy up.' She drank her tea, thinking. 'All I wrote on the box was the woman's phone number.'

'And you don't know who she was?'

She frowned. 'I remember that she wouldn't say.' A few moments passed, then she exclaimed, 'She said it was something to do with Leicestershire.'

'Leicestershire?'

'I think so.'

Leicestershire to me at that time meant Norman Quorn, and anything to do with Norman Quorn would have caught Ivan's attention.

I said slowly, 'Do you think it could possibly have been Norman Quorn's sister, that we met in Leicestershire, at that mortuary?'

'That poor woman! She wouldn't stop crying.'

She had just seen something pretty frightful, I thought. Enough to make me feel sick. 'Could it have been her?'

'I don't know.'

'Do you by any chance remember her name?'

My mother looked blank. 'No, I don't.'

I couldn't remember having heard it at all, though I suppose I must have been told. Perhaps, I speculated, it had been only when he was going to bed that Ivan remembered that he hadn't phoned back again to Norman Quorn's sister, and had then discovered that he had lost her phone number, and had gone to look for the box… and had thought of something to upset him badly.

How could I find Norman Quorn's sister if I didn't know her name…?

I phoned the brewery.

Total blank. No one even seemed to know he had had a sister at all.

Who else?

Via directory enquiries (because yet another tissue-box was long gone) I asked for Detective Chief Inspector Reynolds. Off duty. Impossible to be given his home number. Try in the morning.

I sought out and telephoned the mortuary. All they could or would tell me was the name of the undertaker to whom they had released the body of Norman Quorn. I phoned the undertaker, asking who had arranged cremation and paid the bills. Sir Ivan Westering, I was told, had written them a single cheque to cover all expenses.

How like him, I thought.