Weston and the professor seemed very in tune with one another; it was odd how you could sometimes sense that. But it had not stopped the trollop from sending out her lures to the golden-haired boy who went over to their table to talk to them. It had not stopped her from looking at him with the harpy-greed in her eyes.
Weston and Oliver Remus went out together, and Donna, glancing through one of the pub’s narrow little windows, saw Antonia walk across to her own car and Remus go back across the square. Weston was blithely swinging her shoulder bag as if she had just passed a pleasant hour, and was finding life enjoyable.
She should not be enjoying anything at all. She should have been disintegrating with fear and nervousness, but here she was carousing with a pair of attentive men, apparently not turning a hair. If Donna was not careful, Antonia would end up being happy–more to the point, she would end up unpunished.
Donna had intended to make several more moves before the final one–she had thought out a number of ploys–but she saw that she would have to bring the finale forward. Her heart began to beat faster at the prospect. Could she do it? She remembered Don’s beloved face, and knew she could indeed do it.
Tonight? Yes…
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Godfrey had been delighted to hear about Oliver’s encounter with Antonia Weston in the library, and the lunch they had had. Oliver had been offhand about it–saying he had merely lent Miss Weston his research ticket and then it had seemed courteous to accept her offer of a lunchtime drink–but Godfrey was pleased to think of Oliver having some female companionship for an hour or two. He did not socialize much, these days, poor Oliver, not unless you counted the sales and the occasional trips to London for the Reading Room or Oxford for the Bodleian, which Godfrey did not.
It was entirely understandable that after what had happened five years ago, Oliver had put up barriers against the world. Godfrey often wished he could put up a few barriers himself, because no matter what the professor might nowadays feel, he, Godfrey, could never see that grisly watermill without a sick shudder. He would prefer it if the place were closed down, but just as Quire House had not seemed to belong to anybody after Thomasina Forrester’s death, neither had Twygrist, and none of the local authorities wanted to admit responsibility. Oliver said it ought to be possible to trace the mill’s ownership through land registration and Ordnance Survey maps, but they had never got round to it, and it continued in its owner-less state.
Godfrey hated Twygrist, just as he hated autumn, although once it had been his favourite season. But the memory of one November night was printed indelibly on his mind and he would never forget it, not if he lived to be a hundred and twenty.
Oliver had returned from a buying trip and had got back to Quire just after lunch. He had managed to buy some really beautifully bound early editions of Shelley’s poems quite reasonably, and a box of excellently preserved early copies of Punch and the Strand magazine, which would command very good prices among enthusiasts. There was a remarkable market for that kind of thing. There had been some nice lithographs as well.