‘I do not have indigestion—’
‘…a good dose of Andrew’s liver salts, that’s what you need. If you haven’t got any you’d better get some on your way home tonight. So now, here’s the thing: I’m almost sure Trixie Smith is genuine, but I thought it might be better if you made the call setting up the meeting. You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you? She’s perfectly agreeable to driving up here at the weekend, and I can give her some lunch while we talk. But just in case she has got a – what d’you call it? – a hidden agenda, I thought a call from a solicitor would let her know that I’m not some half-witted old dear, all on my own.’
‘Nobody would ever call you half-witted,’ said Edmund automatically, and without warning the pulse stopped. An enormous silence flooded the inside of his head, and he saw, quite clearly, what he must do. From out of this huge silence, his voice said, quite calmly, very nearly absent-mindedly, ‘Still, now that you mention it, it would be quite a good idea for me to make the call. Give me the number and I’ll ring now. Or – no, wait a moment, I’m going out to a client’s house later this afternoon, and I’ll be driving past the end of your lane. How about if I call in and phone from your house? I’d rather do that; they’re such a gossipy lot here, and if anyone overheard—’
Deborah said certainly they did not want any of Edmund’s staff to hear such a conversation, not even that nice secretary who was so very reliable, or the good-looking young man who looked after the conveyancing work. If Edmund was not expected anywhere later, perhaps he would like to stay on to supper, she said.
‘That’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ said Edmund and rang off.
It was important to remain perfectly calm and not to give way to nerves, although Edmund thought he might have been forgiven for doing just that; you did not expect to be confronted with the dangerous resurrecting of your family’s ghosts while reading your day’s post, and you certainly did not expect those ghosts to come packaged, so to speak, with warnings about indigestion and a throwaway remark concerning the infamous locus in quo of a murder.
(She-was-there…said his mind, starting up its maddening tattoo again. Deborah-was-there…What-did-she-see…?)
As he drove to the house Edmund’s mind was working furiously. There must be no investigations of the Ashwood case – no prying researches so that some unknown female could write the letters MA after her name, no books written by sensation-seeking chroniclers, no idle delvings by anorak-garbed enthusiasts, or journalists constructing Fifty-Years-Ago features…
There must be no elderly ladies growing garrulous with increasing age, reliving memories, talking about the past to anyone who might listen.
The past…
The truth about Ashwood’s past must never surface, no matter the cost.
Tea and scones were set out for Edmund with the slightly slapdash generosity that had always characterized Aunt Deborah’s hospitality.
Edmund, accepting the cup of tea, said, ‘What I think I’d better say to this woman is that…Oh, keep still a moment, Aunt Deborah – there’s a spider crawling on your neck—’ He set down the cup and went over to her chair.
‘Ugh, how horrid – flick it off for me, Edmund, you know how I loathe spiders—’