‘But no one seems to have any idea where he is.’ Solange sniffed again.
As before, the most useful information came from Mother. ‘And his job isn’t being done. I’ve put a call through to Sandy to see if he can take over the archaeological catalogue until …’ My mother, the resolute Lady Craigie, couldn’t work out how to best finish her thought without sounding ominous – she couldn’t say ‘until Dr Housman comes back’ if he wasn’t going to, or if he was going to be fired when he did. She fumbled, ‘Sandy can do an adequate job as long as he’s needed. He’d love to do it. Initially the Murray Estate felt he wasn’t experienced enough, as well as him having an interest in the estate. But he’s the new Earl of Strathfearn – it’s right he do it. Mary can help him just as she’s been helping Dr Housman.’
Mother took a deep breath, and soldiered on. ‘We’ve notified the police about Dr Housman’s absence too, and they’ve been talking to the builders on the estate here. I’m surprised the chief contractor for the Glenfearn School hasn’t seen him. Solange, you said that Dr Housman and the contractor Mr Dunbar sometimes share their meals –’
‘What about Mary?’ I interrupted. ‘Wouldn’t this Housman fellow normally ring the library, or leave her a note to say when he’s coming and going?’
‘Julia, please do wait until I’ve finished speaking,’ Mother corrected automatically. She is used to running her own household and likes to have everyone’s full attention.
I shrugged.
There was a silence.
‘Well?’
‘I spoke to Mary this morning,’ Mother said. ‘She hasn’t noticed anything unusual at the library, except that Housman had left her back door open on the day you arrived. But he doesn’t always work at the Inverfearnie Library; some days he’s here, or in Perth, or even at the National Library in Edinburgh, so Mary didn’t think anything was amiss until I mentioned it to her.’
‘He might have left her a note. I did.’
‘She hasn’t found one. That leaves Solange as the last person who communicated with him. She’d been putting fresh roses in his room, and went up earlier today to change them; she didn’t see anything that suggested he’d slept there.’
Poor Solange gave another miserable sniff. ‘But he hadn’t taken anything away with him, either, Madame! It was the same as always. Oh, how can I speak to the project manager – to Mr Dunbar – about Dr Housman? How can I admit I go in and out of his bedroom? It would not be correct.’
‘Well, I can speak to the project manager. I’ll go to ask him now. I don’t like it that Julia should be mixed up in something as nasty as this. The man might have been murdered.’ Mother got up again, with an air of determination.
‘Perhaps I’m a witness!’ I said, relishing the idea.
No one else relished it.
‘Everything is so unpleasant,’ Mémère said unhappily. ‘I detest having policemen in my house. And they stop at nothing. They will question Julia. What a thing for the front page of the Mercury.’
I laughed, improvising an appropriate headline. ‘“Injured Tinker Lass Saw Nobody.”’
This time Mother scolded swiftly in a tone of iron: ‘Julia.’
Her voice was low and sharp. ‘Just because you can’t remember what happened doesn’t mean you had any less of a narrow escape! And don’t you dare forget that the Beauforts have been raked through muck before. Your grandmother had to fend off a household full of policemen after her sister’s husband died, and it’s an invasion not to be borne when someone you love has lost a battle against cancer. Not more than once. It may be that it was in France and it was before you were born, but that should not make you too young to understand nor care.’
I was ashamed of being so callow and thoughtless. I looked over at my grandmother, sitting frail and unhappy and bravely elegant in her slim Murray tartan skirt, with her white hair coiled so that not a strand was out of place, and I wanted to be like her, moving into a terrible unknown future without showing any fear; also I wanted to leap up and run to her to take her in my arms, but I still wasn’t able to make any sudden moves, and I was too craven to displace my equilibrium.
I bit my lip. ‘Mémère. I do understand. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not a game,’ said my mother. ‘If you ever remember anything that happened to you that day, you might really be a witness.’
She added as she got to the door, ‘Do try to be kind to your grandmother, Julia, darling. And to Solange. And don’t toy with those pearls!’
I could see why Mémère would have put Grandad’s pearls out of her head – out of sight, out of mind – but it irritated me that Mother didn’t remember them. Grandad had said they were his ‘mother’s mother’s mother’s’. How could everyone have just forgotten about them like this?
I tried to rationalise it. My mother grew up in Strathfearn House: perhaps she wasn’t fascinated by the little tower room museum the way my brothers and I were. It had been her father’s private place and she wasn’t allowed in on her own. I, on the other hand, had been his spoilt only granddaughter. How strange it is that everybody remembers things so differently.
I wondered what had happened to those pearls.
On the third day after my release I was able to make it down the stairs to the little morning room. This cheered everybody up very much, so much so that they finally dared press on cautiously with their administrative tasks. Solange was hopelessly gloomy, which was having its effect on me as well, so Mother insisted that Solange come out with her and Mémère, and they left me alone with Colette while the rest of them visited the offices of Sweet’s in Perth with an eye to arranging the auction of the Strathfearn House furnishings. The Murray Hoard was to be auctioned separately by one of the big London houses. Mother said the most valuable pieces in it were potentially of National Interest.
‘Mary Queen of Scots’ bracelet?’ I asked.
‘The Glenfearn School trustees are going to allow that to stay in the Inverfearnie Library.’
I was glad of that, even if it wasn’t ours any more.
Clad in a blue serge skirt belonging to my mother, wearing the remaining wisps of hair teased back over my forehead with a steel hairgrip (put there by Solange trying to work a miracle, probably with more success than I credited her for – she is a creature of taste and elegance), I sat in the morning room with the doors to the terrace open because the air was nice, trying to pull my brain back together. I felt a great deal better. But I couldn’t manage words on a page yet. I couldn’t read. I thought maybe I could write. I ended up doodling.