Of the reputed castle there was no sign. The sheep slowly drifted along from the surrounding hillsides to see what was going on, until they became a positive threat to our easels, which offered them convenient scratching surfaces and edges. But they eventually ambled away, and from then onwards they ignored our presence.

  Geoff now had his task made much more simple than it had been at the bay. He could stroll from one to the other of us, and comment as required. And if he spent quite a long while gazing back the way we had wound our way down to the lake, no one commented on it. But it was unlikely that Harcourt’s Jag would drift down into the valley, returning Elise to what, with the sheep all around us, could perhaps be called the fold. All the same, Geoff watched—and was disappointed.

  We ate our lunches, strolling round and chatting, arguing as to the positions we might take up the next day, where the sun would be at which time, and when it might throw a splash of colour on the craggy face of the mountainside, which we were all trying to capture on our individual flat surfaces.

  I had not previously thought of landscape painting as anything but a quiet and relaxing interest, but by the time we were ready to leave, with shadows now exploring the sides of the mountains and flowing into the valleys, I felt quite exhausted. Concentration, I supposed. Sitting still for so long. In any event, it afflicted all of us, judging by the awkward way the others were fumbling into the coach.

  ‘We’ll be back by seven,’ said Geoff. ‘Gives you time for a bath. It’s been a useful and productive day, I think.’

  We all agreed that it had been a good day, and as we had found time to wander round and see how the others were doing, a fair amount of congratulations were being tossed around. Modesty predominated. It could well be dangerous to express too much possessive pride. You either got your painting slashed, or your head bashed in. It was an indication of how tired I was that I should have allowed such thoughts to creep into my mind.

  And it seemed that I had concentrated so intensely that I had completely forgotten to give any thought at all to Elise. I realised, from this flush of self-criticism, that she meant more to me than I had believed. She had, herself, chosen to make a friend of me, and to trust me. Now I thought of her as my own particular friend. Vastly different. Wherever she was, she would be in a state of misery. Certainly, nothing approaching enjoyment could now be engulfing her.

  When we drew in and parked at the Manor the Jaguar was there again, on the gravelled parking place. So he had brought her back…but no, perhaps not. Llewellyn could have brought her back, escorted in an official police car.

  ‘Harcourt?’ I demanded. ‘Where is he?’

  Nobody seemed to know, and not to care, greatly. Oliver said, ‘Leave it for a while, Phil. Let’s get our stuff into the Glasshouse, and have a quick shower, and perhaps a pint…’

  ‘Let’s try the bar first,’ I suggested. ‘I’m sure that’s what you want, Oliver. The rest can wait. If Harcourt’s there, I want a word with him.’

  ‘As you wish,’ said Oliver equably.

  So we went to the bar, which was open but nearly empty. Those on the other courses were still struggling with their expanding abilities. I wondered what would be German for Chinese Brush Painting.

  There was no sign of Len Farmer, but Harcourt was there, solitary in a corner. He was cuddling what looked like a double whisky. Leaving Oliver to attend to our own requirements, I went across and sat with Harcourt.

  ‘Well?’ I asked.

  I realised, then, that he was looking terribly jaded. What had seemed like rugged health had now deserted his face, and he was left with a craggy, furrowed mask, from which his eyes stared above blue-grey pouches. He did not at once reply.

  Oliver slid my Dubonnet and lemonade in front of me. I didn’t take my eyes off Harcourt.

  ‘Well?’ I repeated. ‘What’s been happening?’

  ‘I took her home,’ he said hollowly. ‘All bloody tears and protests; never shut her mouth all the way there. But I wanted to get her there, and get my solicitor on the job.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ I suggested. ‘Llewellyn had already contacted your local police, and they turned up, and…’

  I stopped, because he was shaking his head miserably. ‘No. Not that. He came, himself. Llewellyn, with that policewoman. And they simply took her away.’

  I glanced at Oliver, but he merely raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Just took her away in his car,’ went on Harcourt, his voice drained of emotion, as though he was relating a nightmare. ‘Said he was bringing her back here for…’ He shook his head wearily. ‘Inter-something.’

  ‘Interrogation,’ put in Oliver quietly. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. They have to go very carefully. Can’t do any bullying or anything like that, or it invalidates the lot.’

  ‘But…why, why, why?’ He thumped the table with his now empty glass, then stared at it as though he couldn’t remember how it had become empty.

  ‘Because she had such a good motive for killing Jennie.’ I had difficulty preventing myself from reaching across to clutch his hand encouragingly. ‘You know about the slashed painting?’

  He groaned. ‘I’ve heard it a thousand times. Do I know! Hah!’

  So I went on, ‘Elise could have picked up a lump of wood anywhere. Then she would’ve had the means to do it. But the most important thing is that she says—said to me, anyway—that she’d gone to that place in order to use the ladies’ toilet, and that she did go in there, and that Jennie was killed just outside, while she was inside. But Elise couldn’t have done what she claimed she did, because that ladies’ toilet is closed for alterations, and has been for weeks. No, don’t interrupt. Let me say it. If she insists on saying that, then she’s telling a lie, and a lie she wouldn’t have told if she’d even attempted to go in there. So she hadn’t tried it—in which case the police will ask her: why else would she have gone there, to a spot only yards from Jennie? What possible reason could she have had—unless it was to come on Jennie from behind? The ladies’ toilet must therefore have been no more than an excuse to go there…and to do what? To punish Jennie for having slashed her painting to shreds, that’s what.’

  ‘You can’t be saying…no…it’s just not my Elise. She would never do a thing like that.’ He shook his head vigorously to underline it.

  ‘All right.’ I held up my hand. ‘So maybe she intended to do no more than ruin Jennie’s painting. Break up her easel or something. That would verge on being excusable. Just retribution. But Jennie’s head was smashed in, and she was dead. Now do you understand? Llewellyn’s got a damned good reason for holding Elise for questioning. Particularly after the way she slipped away from here. And if he doesn’t get a valid explanation of that lie about the ladies’ toilet, or an admission that it was a lie, then he can…What can he do, Oliver?’

  He shrugged. ‘He can stick his neck out and charge her. Or—if he doesn’t think he’s got enough evidence for that—he could take his case to a magistrate and apply for an extension, for further questioning. But…your solicitor…is he there with her?’

  ‘Of course he is. What d’you think? I’m paying him enough.’

  ‘Then he’ll know how to look after her,’ I said. ‘Stop worrying, Mr Harcourt.’

  ‘Hah!’ he said. ‘Stop worrying, she says!’

  I smiled at him, encouragingly, I hoped. ‘But you’ll have to excuse us…’

  He nodded, and Oliver and I went along to our room.

  ‘Shower,’ I said. ‘I feel all gritty, after that little chat.’

  ‘Did he upset you that much, Phil?’ he asked, concern in his voice.

  ‘Upset? Well no, not that. It’s just…oh, I don’t know. That man! Harcourt. He’s so damned possessive! His Elise!’

  ‘Well…she is.’

  ‘It’s the way he assumes she can’t look after herself. You’re not a woman, Oliver. You don’t know what it’s like. He won’t let her stand on her own two feet, or let her make her own decisions. Oliver, she’d be so much better if he was well away from here.’

  ‘Yes, Phil. I can see that.’

  It had been his patient voice. I almost snapped at him. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh—but I do. If it was you, Phil, round at their station and being questioned intensively, wouldn’t you feel lost and deserted if I just left you to it?’

  ‘I could manage.’

  ‘Yes, my love. I’m sure you could. But you’d feel deserted if I just sat back and said nothing. Admit it.’

  ‘Oh…you men!’

  He grinned at me. ‘As I would if the roles were reversed.’

  I got up on to my toes and kissed him. ‘Shower,’ I said. ‘Me first?’

  ‘By all means. Ladies first.’ And he grinned.

  A quarter of an hour later we stood together at the window. Neither of us said anything. There wasn’t anything left to say, except…

  ‘Oliver!’

  ‘I’m here.’ He squeezed my arm to confirm it.

  ‘Do you realise something—it’s all been discussed, argued, disputed, and the rest, around Jennie’s death. There’s been no mention at all of Pam’s. Now—isn’t that strange?’

  He thought about it for a moment or two, then, ‘Well yes. I suppose it is, now you come to mention it. But after all, Phil, the police have had something to work with, on the Jennie murder. But with Pam’s…well, nothing really, as far as we know. No clues, nowhere to look.’

  ‘There’s the fact that it’s the same weapon.’

  ‘So they said. But does it tell us anything, even if it is?’

  ‘And that Jennie died first.’

  ‘Well yes,’ he agreed. ‘Blood grouping. But that only suggests that Jennie was killed first, Pam afterwards. Apart from that, there’s no direct link between the two murders. I mean—there doesn’t seem to be anybody who would want to kill both of them.’

  ‘Hmm!’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t that the dinner bell?’

  It was, and we went down to see what they were laying on for all of us. And this time I had a healthy appetite. Afterwards, we walked around outside, just because we were both restless, up and down the terrace, round the lawn and back, to the gates and back. We had been sitting all day, and now we were restless. I didn’t want to go into the bar—it would be too noisy. We spoke very little, there not being anything left to say. Simply, as the dusk enclosed us, the mood was too restful to be disturbed.

  In fact, we were so absorbed with the seclusion that it must have taken a minute or two before the fact registered with either of us that a car had drawn up on the terrace, opposite the main entrance. Someone who looked very like Llewellyn opened the rear door, and out stepped Elise.

  We began to move in that direction, but not hurriedly. He was saying something urgently, his head bent close to hers. Then he got back into his car. It backed up to where it could turn, then it drove away.

  I ran up the steps from the lawn, leaving Oliver to walk at his own measured pace.

  ‘Elise!’

  ‘Oh…Philipa! Philipa!’

  We hugged each other, but she was nowhere near tears and could only laugh her pleasure.

  ‘Was it very bad?’ I asked.

  ‘No, no. Not really. All I could tell them was what I heard and saw, which wasn’t very much, as you know. But it was irritating when they kept asking the same questions over and over. Poor father! He must have been worried out of his mind.’

  So it was ‘father’ now. It seemed that Elise had matured, abruptly and calmly.

  ‘We’ve all been terribly worried.’

  ‘Oh—there wasn’t any need for that. After all, I hadn’t done anything bad.’

  And then, there was Harcourt, at the head of the steps to the front door.

  ‘Elise!’ he roared. He bounded down the steps, and hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks, and said, ‘You can’t know how relieved I am that you’re safe, my love.’

  She stepped back a pace, no doubt to observe the depths of that relief. ‘Of course I’m safe, father. I’ve been at one of their police stations, and what could be safer than that? And they were ever so polite to me, and so patient.’

  I wondered whether he had noticed that he’d been demoted to being her father rather than her daddy.

  ‘I’m sure my man, Greatorex, looked after you, baby.’

  Baby? After all, he had noticed her use of ‘father’, and was trying to neutralise it.

  ‘Oh—that stupid man!’ she cried. ‘Why on earth did you send him? Nothing but interruptions. “You don’t need to answer that,” he’d say. Why shouldn’t I? There wasn’t anything they asked that I couldn’t answer. And he’d say, “That is a leading question.” Oh…I could have killed him. I’d have been back here an hour ago, if it hadn’t been for your ninny of a solicitor and his habeases and his corpuses, whatever those silly things are. And Geoff... Where’s Geoff? Geoff…’

  He had to be somewhere near, because all the rest were out there now, including the office staff, to welcome home their adventuress, but he had been hanging back quietly and unobtrusively, even shyly. Now he came forward into the light from the terrace lamps, slowly and hesitantly.

  ‘Geoff, love,’ she whispered.

  Then they were in each other’s arms, and tears there were at last. Eventually, he held her away from him, the better to see her. ‘Welcome home, my sweet.’

  Home? Was that how he considered Bryngowan Manor? His home. Well…after all…it was.

  ‘Home?’ she asked.

  ‘The cottage, love,’ he explained. ‘Come along. We’ll brew a pot of tea, and you can tell me all about it.’

  As far as they were concerned, the rest of us might not have been there.

  ‘This place,’ Geoff was saying, as the terrace lamps released their hold on them. ‘The place I’ve found…it’s way, way out in the mountains, and you’re going to love it. Sheep and swans. Everybody likes it. And you’ll be thrilled when you see what’s been turned out…’

  She wasn’t saying anything, was content with his presence, his calm and matter-of-fact voice, and his arm protecting her. ‘Fetch your stuff over later…’

  Those were the last words I heard him saying to her.

  The spectators quietly dispersed. That left Oliver and me on the terrace, with Harcourt. He seemed bewildered. After all he’d done for her, how could she have been so ungrateful? But Elise had proved to herself that she didn’t need the strong arm of his considerable income to support her. Geoff’s strong arm around her waist would be sufficient.

  Then I was abruptly withdrawn from my romantic musings by Oliver, bringing me back heavily to earth again.

  ‘He didn’t drive away, you know,’ he said.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Our friend, Llewellyn. His car’s pulled on to the gravel patch, and he’s waiting there.’

  ‘What for, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, I should imagine to observe the result of Elise’s release. Who acted how. That sort of thing.’

  I shook his arm. ‘Don’t be so obscure, Oliver, please.’

  He stopped, gripped both of my arms just above the elbows, considered what he could see of my expression in the half-light, and said, ‘He’s being crafty, that’s my guess. He couldn’t put together a solid case against Elise, so he’s made a gesture and released her. But only, I’d guess, to see how this affects the murderer’s actions. With Elise free, who will now become all nervous and anxious? That’s what he’s looking for.’

  ‘So?’ I asked cautiously. Llewellyn wasn’t going to see much about people’s reactions, sitting there in the car park.

  ‘That Llewellyn’s no fool,’ he assured me, as though I hadn’t realised that. ‘He’s playing it gently. He’d have known, almost at once, that Elise could not have killed Jennie. She’s much too naïve to be able to hide it. But that doesn’t mean she’s not intelligent, Phil. And Llewellyn would recognise that. So he releases her, and tells her to keep her eyes open. Probably mentioned no names to her, I expect, just left it to her. So—who would you guess to be the person he really suspects, Phil? Go on, tell me.’

  ‘I can’t follow your tortuous mental processes, Oliver,’ I protested.

  ‘Not mine. Llewellyn’s. He’s thrown her back into the group—and in what direction d’you think he has pointed her?’

  ‘You can’t mean…’ I stopped dead, clutching his arm. He said nothing, but waited for me to complete it. ‘You can’t mean Geoff? Oh…come on! Not Geoff!’

  He was quite solemn about it, not a hint of a smile. ‘Not my reasoning. We’re talking about Llewellyn’s thoughts. What he’s thinking. Who she’s closest to.’

  ‘Geoff? Oh no!’

  ‘Remember, I said it’s Llewellyn’s thinking that counts. And Phil, if you give it a little consideration yourself, you’ll realise why. Who, down by the estuary, had the most freedom of movement of all of us? Geoff, of course. And don’t tell me that Larry wouldn’t know all about them, because I’ve realised that. But would Larry say anything that might harm. Geoff? I’d lay all my cash on it: he wouldn’t say a word. So that doesn’t come into it. Geoff knows that area inside out, probably knows the paths through all that woodland. And who could approach anybody in the group without the slightest suspicion from them? And who didn’t get round to speak to anybody about what they were doing, all morning? Geoff again. And who had a motive quite as good as his cherished. Elise had—because it was the very same one? Geoff.’ Then at last he was silent.

  ‘Oliver!’ I whispered. ‘Not Geoff!’

  ‘It’s how Llewellyn could be seeing it. And all he might be looking for now is one tiny morsel of evidence. So…as a bribe for releasing Elise…he’s offered her this. One loose word, one whispered secret. Pillow talk.’

  ‘No, no, Oliver! For pity’s sake, don’t even say it. Elise couldn’t…wouldn’t…she’d never agree to that.’

 

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