LITMIR.BIZ

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to the cottage in the valley. That was about the time you last spent a long spell at home … I mean, it was about ten years ago.’

      I expected the Captain to soften a little at this laying out of my credentials. But he didn’t. He listened impassively while Danny told me cheerfully, ‘I meant to say. Your cousin’s bicycle was left in my workshop after her accident and she asked me to give it to you. Said it might be useful. It’s outside the kitchen door, leaning against the far wall. She’s set to be let out tomorrow so you can tell her that you got my note and managed to get eggs and milk as directed.’

      Then his mouth twitched in a manner that implied either sympathy, solidarity or ridicule before he swiftly escaped outside to receive his orders from the Colonel, leaving me to fight a battle with the Captain that I couldn’t even imagine a need to begin.

      I tried to establish a little more clarity as the Captain moved to ease the front door closed. I said reasonably, ‘Don’t you think it’s time we called the police?’ Then I added haplessly in the face of his stare, ‘Isn’t that what one normarily does at a time like this? When one isn’t being whatever it is you suspect me of?’

      I actually expected him to smile at that, particularly given the way my brows furrowed in the wake of spotting my own little peculiarity of speech. But it turned out the illusion I’d been suffering that I understood his idea of calm was made of very brittle stuff. I didn’t know this man at all. And didn’t want to. I thought I preferred the sort of soldier who smirked and guffawed.

      This man manufactured a stare that made it seem he thought I had run mad. It was a very strange defence. I was helpless as he said, ‘No police.’

      I said quickly, ‘I appreciate that you want to protect your father but why are you—?’

      I meant to ask why he was systematically belittling the pretty fundamental loss of all my clothes, let alone the seriousness of my account of an invasion into his house, but he interrupted with a very bland question of, ‘Do you understand?’ Then I had to stand there feebly while he pursued his own course. ‘I expect you think I’m overstepping my authority here but, really, you foisted that role upon me when you decided to embroil any passerby who happened to be in the vicinity in the rescue of my father’s driver.’

      We were back to unhappy mentions of Matthew Croft again. I whispered his name.

      The sunlight through the glass beside the doorframe touched one side of the Captain’s face. It should have softened his features but it didn’t. ‘Spot on,’ he said. ‘Since you got there so swiftly, I imagine you must have already digested every sordid detail of my family’s history with that man, so you cannot be at a loss now to understand why at this moment I’m here when I ought to be in London and why I couldn’t possibly allow you to wreak further havoc in this house. Haven’t you done enough?’

      ‘I haven’t actually.’

       ‘What?’

      ‘Heard the full sordid details.’ That startled him. He’d thought I was finally admitting darker intentions. It seemed he was absolutely failing to understand me too. It was unexpected. This was not a common experience for me. I told him with a greater sense of sympathy for the feeling that was driving him here, ‘Barely anyone has said a word. And besides, I haven’t asked. I have no interest in knowing what happened in that room or what Mr Langton did. And I don’t want to hear any unpleasant insinuations about Mr Croft either.’ I lifted my chin rebelliously, just in case he meant to defy me there. ‘Based solely on my own brief dealings with that man, I have to tell you that I actually quite like him.’

      That, suddenly, made the Captain smile. In the midst of his worries about his father, I’d made him laugh. ‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I suppose I’d better not ask what opinion you’ve been forming about the rest of us.’

      It was a concession of sorts. Then he gave a little sigh and tension fled too. A hand lifted to run through dark hair. He said with considerably more gentleness, ‘Look, please try to see what’s happened here from my point of view. I don’t really mean to accuse you of anything. I believe you really have acted in good faith. It’s just that I’ve come here at great inconvenience because of something that was said by a young woman I’ve never met and now she’s announced that we have to add an intruder to the list. If you knew how the past few months have been for my father you’d know just how horribly convenient that sounds.’

      A strange chill went through me as his head lifted and he told me frankly, ‘Now, I can’t stop you from reporting the loss of your case to the police, and I certainly will be encouraging Mr Winstone to report his assault. In fact, he’s probably already done it, so I hope you’re ready to give a full and thorough witness statement when our local constable comes knocking. But,’ he added, becoming severe again, ‘be aware that you never had access to this house. Tell them you were robbed outside, tell them it took place anywhere – on the moon if you like. But do not mention this house.’

      He continued by making a rough list. ‘Don’t mention your food in the kitchen, the telephone conversation with me in my brother’s study or any of it. Please. I really cannot have the police calling on my father. It’s bad enough that Bertie’s attack loosely connects my father to Matthew Croft. I can’t have it made worse by having this house in an official report. You have no idea of the distress it will cause when it gets out. Which it will inevitably do. Please?’

      Now he’d surprised me. I’d expected him to claim my silence with threats. Instead he’d dared to trust that the high significance he placed upon his father’s needs would rank as sufficient justification for overriding mine. In a last show of defiance, I muttered to my shoes, ‘I’ll send you the bill for replacement clothes, shall I? Since I won’t be depending on the law to return them.’

      I looked up in time to see a different kind of concentration flicker behind those eyes, followed by perhaps the first instinctive feeling I’d seen him reveal that day and it wasn’t violent at all. There was the smallest glimmer of warmth. I’d obviously just revealed some part of me too. ‘Do that. And Emily?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Did you really say ‘normarily’? You do know it isn’t a word, don’t you?’

      ‘It’s an accidental contraction of normally and ordinarily,’ I said bravely. This was something that happened whenever I got myself into a position of trying to speak my mind and only ended in entangling myself instead. It irritated me that I’d slipped into doing it now. ‘I can’t help it. You’ve already scored your victory. Do you have to make me feel like a child too?’

      I’d like to pretend I managed make a grand exit then and left him staring dumbfounded at my magnificent wake from his place in the stairwell. But instead I glanced back briefly as I reached the passage towards the dining room and, to be honest, there was something awfully humbling about seeing this man wreathed in all that sunshine while his father and a man and a dog bickered cheerfully about luggage behind the glass outside, turning alone to face whatever fresh battle awaited him within the bright, pretty setting of that study.

       Chapter 8

      I have often wondered if I am the sort of person who tends to make things unnecessarily dramatic with the force of my own emotions. But lately I have tended to believe it is more complicated than that. I think that sometimes it is my better feelings that keep me from making bigger mistakes. I didn’t march back to the bus stop to idle away three hours until the second and final bus of the day came. I didn’t feed the resentment from my ejection from the Manor or use it as an excuse to relieve all the other stresses of the morning either. I’m already a woman who is haunted by the grander wrongs I have encountered in life – there are plenty of real opportunities to feel wretchedly at fault if one only looks for them after all – and I certainly didn’t need to add to the burden by participating in the more immediate idea of tit-for-tat that grows all too often from smaller

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