Getting Involved

Section Twenty-One

Randall seated herself on the empty terrace to process the impressions of the chat with Poppy. It was quiet there and she took out her notebook to make some notes. Scott always told her to do that as soon as possible, when the information was still fresh in her memory.

Poppy had tried to make her believe that Margaret supported herself financially by stealing jewellery, to no avail of course. It was unclear why she tried, as there was no proof for anything of the sort and there was no assistance from either Sebastian or Anna. The latter, she noticed, did not agree with Poppy, but she appeared too afraid to speak her mind. A disturbed glance and a jump into the pool were all she was capable of.

Just when Randall had noted down that she ought to speak to Anna alone, the girl showed up, looking a little shy. "Would you mind if I joined you?" she asked.

"Not at all." Randall closed her notebook. Perhaps there was more character to Anna that she had given her credit for. This was the perfect time to find out.

Anna sat down, finding the young policewoman easier to speak to than Scott, of whose stern blue eyes she was a trifle afraid. "I just wanted to say ... I don't like what Poppy says about Margaret. It isn't true. But she gets really nasty if you say so and well, she's the only other person my age here." She clearly thought that a lame excuse herself.

"That's all right," Randall comforted her. "What else isn't true?" Liars usually lied about more than one thing.

"Oh..." Anna looked thoughtful. She lowered her voice so she would not be overheard by people passing by accidentally. "Some things sometimes. About men, or parties. She told me once that someone had asked her to marry him, but that she had turned him down, but that wasn't true at all because he told me so."

So Poppy made things up, but were they only things of a particular nature? Did she have a particular obsession? "Does she wants everyone to know how well-loved she is?"

Anna had to think about that again. "Yes, I guess so. And she would not like someone else being loved or liked. Mum said not to let her know that I have lunch with Nigel very often. Well, not anymore, I guess, now that he's dead." She grimaced.

This was the first time Randall had seen one of them display an emotion that looked remotely like sadness. It was also interesting that Clarissa had decided that Poppy was not allowed to know about Anna's meetings with Nigel, meetings that seemed to have been orchestrated by Clarissa. "Why did you have lunch with him? Was he a good friend?" The man was old enough to be her father.

"Mum said I should get to know him," Anna shrugged. And Anna dutifully did everything her mother told her to do. "I assumed he was a particular friend of hers."

Or he had been one some twenty years ago? Randall wished she could note this sudden thought down. It would certainly be a significant development in the case if Anna turned out to be Nigel's daughter. According to Margaret Anna was illegitimate. Anna did not know much herself. That was evident. Clarissa obviously knew the truth, but what had Nigel known and what did Margaret know? She was aware that she was running ahead of things here, but the matter was very, very worthy of special consideration. Whoever had had a motive for wanting Nigel dead depended on whoever had known about Anna.

Clarissa had known, but it would not have been to her advantage to murder Nigel before he came to know about it himself and he could support Anna financially. One did not remove a potential source of income, especially if the income was going to be very large.

Margaret stood nothing to gain from the knowledge at all, if she possessed it. She had probably picked up on shreds of information and drawn her conclusions. Randall doubted whether Margaret would be able to sketch a clear picture.

To Nigel it might have made a difference, because he might have remembered Anna in his will. And that, Randall assumed, was a bad thing for Poppy -- if Poppy had known. Suppose Poppy had known. She would not have liked it and that was an understatement. She would not have embraced Anna as a sister, but she would have considered it a serious threat. Clarissa seemed to realise that, so it was unlikely that she had ever told Poppy.

There was no telling what Nigel had done. He had always supported his daughter since she had come to live with him. He might even have thought it would make her happy to have a sister. Yet so far there had not been any indication that Poppy held a grudge against Anna, or that she treated her like a sister. They lay in the sun with the same people, but that was all. Neither Anna nor the men might have noticed a subtle change in Poppy's behaviour, though. Randall had not found them to be overly perceptive.

That Anna was Nigel's daughter was nothing but a very wild guess, but so far it made sense to Randall. She had to do better than this to convince the DCI, she knew. It might be useful to bounce the idea off Margaret first and build up her arguments before she confronted her boss.

"Is it time for dinner yet?" Anna asked when Randall did not speak.

Randall blinked. "Oh. Yes, it might be," she said after looking at her watch. It was just about a quarter past seven. They walked to the dining room, but there was no time to discuss anything with Scott before dinner because of all the other people around. Everything would have to wait until later, but she signalled that she had to speak to him.

Dinner was a sober meal, about which Poppy began to complain. She had gone on for a while without being interrupted until Margaret saw it annoyed others as well. "Someone died. Didn't anyone teach you manners?" she exclaimed in her worst accent. "After a death adults don't generally celebrate with a fancy meal." The only way to get through to Poppy might be to imply she was not an adult.

"You're just sucking up to the police."

Margaret gave the Inspector across from her an exasperated look. Fortunately he met her eyes and he did not look as if he believed Poppy. "I can't believe I'm the only one to speak up about this, or indeed about anything," she muttered. A reassuring look from Scott silenced her when she meant to question Edwin about his smirk. Scott, at least, was on her wavelength.

The advantage of having two extra guests at the dinner table was that the same old topics were not rehashed and that people tried not to speak about acquaintances that Scott and Randall would not be familiar with. At least, that was how it appeared to Margaret. How polite, she remarked soundlessly to herself.

After he had asked her such difficult questions in the beginning, Poppy had avoided the Inspector and she had succeeded. The fact that he had been too busy with other things to seek her out had restored her confidence. She began to see him as a man again and those required a special approach if they looked interesting. "Are you a Scot, Inspector?" she inquired.

"I am." He had thought that it was pretty audible where he came from. She might as well have asked if he was a man.

"Do you ever wear kilts?"

He could foresee where Poppy was heading. The question became very boring after the second time it was asked, which was amazingly early in a Scot's life, he would wager. "No, I never wear kilts."

"Why not? Because they really wear nothing underneath?"

"I have better things to do than to look under a man's skirt," he answered. "But perhaps Miss Maxwell, as a fellow Scot, can shed some light on the matter?" Margaret might take over the conversation and get him off the hook. She was better with such queries, he assumed.

Margaret made a choking sound. "I cannot." He could not really be thinking that she had ever looked -- or even wanted to look.

So Margaret did not care to come to his rescue or she could not. It was up to himself then unfortunately. "Neither can I."

Poppy continued in spite of that. "I heard you have to get married in one."

"Yes, I plan to." He could easily say that. There was nothing definite about a mere plan and it was the best way to head Poppy off, he supposed. If he said no, she would ask why.

"With or without underwear?" Poppy persisted.

"That depends on my wife," he said with a perfectly straight face.

Although he had not looked at her when he spoke the words, Margaret had trouble breathing. She could not think of Iain with another wife. Was that jealousy kicking in? Margaret disliked it that she should fell prey to such base emotions. She should be relaxed about this and not feel at all threatened at the mere thought of another woman, when the man had never even confessed to having any special regard for her.

Scott saw a rather disapproving frown. He wondered if she disliked kilts, or perhaps kilts with nothing underneath. He was determined not to say any more on the subject.

After dinner Randall wondered whom to speak to first, Scott or Margaret. Her dilemma was solved by Arthur Moss, who monopolised Scott with weighty arguments as to why he should be allowed to leave as soon as possible. "Miss Maxwell?" she said discreetly, seeking the other woman out as they left the room.

"Yes?" Margaret had planned to go upstairs to phone Ailsa, but she could postpone that for a while. Ailsa would not be going to bed in the next half hour yet.

"I have several questions to ask you."

"Oh? Well, fire away."

"The DCI told me to ask you why you had to go away today," Randall whispered.

"He didn't want to tell you himself?" Margaret smiled at his discretion. She made a quick decision. There was no reason why Randall could not know the truth, now that it had all worked out perfectly. She would only think the wrong things if she were not enlightened. "That's nice of him. Follow me."

Not understanding, but curious, Randall followed her to her bedroom, where the laptop was switched on. She watched as Margaret clicked around in her main documents folder, wondering if she should reveal that they had done that earlier. She decided that was all Scott's prerogative. Then the picture of a brown-haired, smiling girl appeared on the screen. Randall guessed her to be about ten years old. "Your daughter?" she asked in surprise. There was enough of a resemblance to Margaret and why else would she keep this photo on her computer?

"Sort of. Someone had to pick her up from school today."

Randall examined the picture. The girl looked a lot like Margaret. How come she was only sort of a daughter? "And Scott couldn't tell me, because..."

"I'd like to keep my private life private. There's a child involved." She showed Randall a few other photos and beamed. "She should grow up with positive attention and I don't think she should read about people focusing on the fact that she was unwanted by her mother who gave her away because a baby didn't fit into her life." The explanation came easily -- she had been thinking about it today. "That was my sister, by the way, so she's really my niece."

"I was already wondering why she was only sort of your daughter if she looked so much like you. She's a very pretty girl. Have you taken care of her for long?" Randall guessed it had been a few years at least, given the fondness with which Margaret was looking at the pictures. If she had shown Scott these, but notably that look, it was really no wonder that he had agreed to accompany her.

"Just about since her birth. My sister died less than a year later and there was never a father, so I'm all Ailsa has left." Margaret closed the windows with the photos, fearing she had gone on for too long already. "Do you still think badly of him now?"

"No. Well, he could have sent me instead and it wouldn't have looked half so suspicious." Randall was undecided.

Despite herself, Margaret had to agree with that. She should not reason from her perspective alone. It was indeed what he could have done, but he had not. "Next time I'll take you, all right? What was your other question?"

Randall related her conversation with Anna and the suspicion she now had about Anna's parentage. "I thought I'd tell you first before I tried it out on Scott. It might be too far-fetched for him. I fear I've used up all my speculative credit with my suggestion that you heard Nigel cheat on you with Clarissa and you then went to murder him."

"I beg your pardon?" Margaret cried. She and Nigel? What sort of an insane idea was that? It was disgusting.

"Yes, that was Scott's reaction too," Randall snickered. "I'm sorry." If Margaret was very insulted she could always explain she had only suggested it to aggravate her boss and that Margaret had only been a victim of that wish.

"But you didn't really think..." It was too ridiculous for words. Actually it was not and she could find words to describe it, but she had to suppress them, because they were none too complimentary and one should never speak ill of the dead. "Enough of that. Urgh. Let's think of your idea. I've just been telling the man I would only relate facts, not hunches. He told me all I was guilty of was not telling him everything I knew, but really I don't know, I only suspect."

"I thought you might," Randall said in satisfaction. The fact that Margaret had suspected the same thing almost made it true. They would not both be seeing ghosts.

"Let's assume it's true. If Poppy knew about it, she has another motive. Her position as the heiress might be challenged if Nigel had planned to split his fortune among the two. I don't think she would have liked that. So we have to find out if Poppy knew."

"Shouldn't we first find out if Nigel knew? If he didn't know, there was no reason to want him out of the way because he would not have done anything about it. Yet." Someone could always have told him in the future.

"True. Clarissa could certainly not have wanted him out of the way. And it sounds as if Anna didn't know a thing, which is totally Anna. Her brain is really dormant."

"We'll know what's in the will tomorrow," said Randall. "I expect it might be crucial. You know Clarissa better than I do. Is she the kind to want the best for her child? The kind that would kill? The mother lioness sort of thing?"

Margaret did not know if she could kill, so how could she know if Clarissa could? "To be honest, I've never paid that much attention to her, but I doubt that she would kill. She seems rather bland. She and Anna lead a comfortable enough life as it is. Unless Nigel was paying them and he threatened to stop the payments, I don't see why she would want him killed after having been friends with him all of Anna's life."

Section Twenty-Two

After a long and trying conversation with Arthur Moss, Scott found Randall looking very triumphant. "Oh, no. What's up?" he asked. She had something to tell him and he had to be interested, he could tell.

"I've made an important discovery," she announced.

"Oh, no. Then I'd better sit down," he said in amusement. She looked about to burst and he wondered what she had been doing. He had caught a glimpse of her going away with Margaret, but even before that she had signalled to him that she had something to say. This might not have anything to do with Margaret's secrets at all. He had better not be too eager.

Randall told him about her ideas about who Anna's father really was and how she had discussed this with Margaret first. He would like that, impressed as he seemed to be with her. She knew he was going to be sceptic about the idea nevertheless, because he always was. He always wanted to examine something from six angles before commenting, never mind that things never even had six angles.

"I am impressed by the deductive abilities of you ladies," he responded after listening to everything, but he recognised that there might be some truth in what they were thinking. And he felt pleased, not threatened by the women's partnership. It was good that they got along. If Randall liked Margaret, she could not say very much about him liking her.

"What does that mean?" Randall did not automatically assume that it was disapproval. Scott's lukewarm reaction was too predictable to be disappointing. She supposed he always had to act as some sort of professional check on her enthusiasm, even though he felt there were good points in her story.

"That you have no proof." They were basing their suspicions on the fact that Nigel had been old enough to be Anna's father -- and other logical gems. It explained some things, but it also raised more questions. Why should the matter be raked up after such a long-standing acquaintance? Perhaps Anna had recently turned twenty-one and Clarissa had considered this a proper age to be enlightened. He could not find any other reason why they had been waiting to tell her. Clarissa must have known all this time.

It was obvious that they had no proof yet. Randall pushed that argument aside. "But doesn't it sound good?"

"Of course. It sounds extremely good. You and Margaret have supplied all the facts that were missing, no doubt straight from your own imaginations." He knew Randall was very good at that. Quite often she was right, but sometimes she was not and it was better to believe in facts, not in suppositions. It was dangerous to be led by beliefs only. Everything would be interpreted in a certain light in order to fit into that assumption. Some people even ignored all evidence that did not fit their beliefs. He began to understand Margaret's reticence a bit better. The danger of looking for specific evidence to fit these suppositions was very great.

Suppose she had told him and he would have confronted Clarissa and Anna with information that later turned out to be wrong. Margaret undoubtedly thought it cruel to raise Anna's hopes, assuming Anna could be excited to that extent. As someone whose excitement was also difficult to discern, Scott would not easily dismiss anyone as unexcitable, however. He did not know Anna well enough to know whether she had ever thought about the identity of her father.

He supposed Margaret would also not appreciate it if someone approached her with information about Ailsa's father if that information was not absolutely correct. It was good that he had gone with her to the school. He would never have realised this otherwise. Some things might seem superfluous at first, but later they always proved their worth. He considered saying this to Randall.

Still, he did not see why Margaret's reticence should extend to Clarissa's lover, except that both cases centred around Clarissa.

When had it become Margaret and not Miss Maxwell, Randall wondered curiously, but she did not ask. She knew when receiving an answer was wishful thinking. "Oh, no. She's not like that." There, he would appreciate that remark better.

"That's what she said," he agreed. "Yet she gossiped with you." And she had not wanted to tell him anything about these ideas she had. Why had she spoken to Randall instead? Randall had only had to divulge some of her thoughts and Margaret had divulged hers. Was that the way? Should he tell her about some hunches of his own first? Did he even have any hunches?

"Jealous, sir? Perhaps it will make you feel better to hear she reluctantly told me she had been entertaining similar suspicions. What do we do now?" She was all for taking some action. They had to go and look for that proof he needed to believe her. It had to be there. Somewhere.

"How about we start looking for actual proof?" He had to admit that Randall's suspicions had a good chance of being true, especially if independently from her, Margaret had been thinking the same. He had some faith in Margaret. "We'll go through every single piece of paper in Nigel's study. Who knows what we might find? Oh!" he said as something else occurred to him. "We should also take a look at the first aid kit. Miss Maxwell's special orders."

Was the woman issuing orders now too? "Why does Superintendent Maxwell want to have the first aid kit searched?" Randall was amused. She had never got the impression that Margaret wanted to order her to do anything.

He ignored the all too obvious sarcasm. "She thinks the murderer took gloves from it. By the way, did she tell you anything else?" he asked, still wanting to know about Clarissa's lover. If that had been discussed he wanted to hear about it.

"No and I didn't ask." She smiled sweetly because he was not going to like that.

"Why not?" She should have tried if Margaret had been in the mood to talk.

"I didn't think of it." That was possible. She was nothing but human, after all. "Now you can ask her yourself." In fact, he would prefer that.

"She won't talk to me." Why did he even have to tell Randall that? She knew it all too well.

Randall would disagree. There was plenty of conversation going back and forth between the two, but unfortunately not about the subject DCI Scott was interested in. "Well, you do make it hard for her by saying she has stupid ethical restrictions..." That was hardly ingratiating. She could not blame anyone for wanting to stay silent after that was flung at her.

"I like being honest." Although to be fair, he should not have used the word stupid in connection to Margaret. He should have said stubborn.

"Oh, but were you?"

He did not answer, but if pressed he would admit that he would not have made that comment if her ethical restrictions had not been working against him, so in that respect he had not been honest.

After speaking to Randall, Margaret had to phone Ailsa, or else she would be in bed and she did want to see how her girl was doing. It was already half past eight.

She had been given a phone number at which she could contact Mrs. Scott, but there was no answer when she tried. A little disconcerted she attempted to do a bit of work as she waited, but she could not concentrate. Why was there no answer?

It was different when Ailsa was at school. There she was under continuous supervision. While she was sure that Mrs. Scott could be trusted, she did not know if Ailsa was happy. From school it was very easy for her to phone, but if she was staying with someone else she would not be able to, unless she made a specific request. Margaret did not know if she dared.

She told herself not to be so incredibly concerned. This was not the first time Ailsa had stayed with other people and it had always gone well, though this was the first time she had stayed with a stranger without being prepared for it.

She managed to postpone her second attempt till some thirty minutes later, not wanting to appear desperate by trying every two minutes. This time the phone was answered and she could speak to Ailsa. "We were walking the dogs!" The enthusiasm in the girl's voice indicated that she was very much at ease. Margaret relaxed.

Randall sat looking through Nigel's diary. Every week he had had meetings with one A. She had been looking for that specifically and she had found it quickly enough. "Sir, if someone looked into both their diaries, it wouldn't be hard to put two and two together, especially if Anna has been meeting N at the same time that Nigel met A."

Scott agreed. He peered over her shoulder. "The person with the best access to Anna's diary is Clarissa and the person with the best access to Nigel's diary is Poppy."

"She also the second best for Anna's diary, don't you think? Anna would never notice if her friend looked into it." Maybe Anna even thought writing N was mysterious enough and she did not hide her diary. Neither had Nigel. He might have assumed Poppy had no interest in his business meetings.

"So this is where her suspicions might have originated." Despite Scott's avowed skepticism towards speculations, he appeared to be considering it a valuable one nevertheless. "She'd be on the lookout for women in Nigel's life anyway, since they might make her compete for his attention and she strikes me as the sort of girl who wouldn't like that. I can see her peeking into his diary to see whom he's been meeting," he said thoughtfully.

"Especially," said Randall, "because all other appointments have names and purposes and locations. Lunch. Arthur. Project. Club. That's pretty clear. There's no location listed for lunch with A, whereas it is for most other appointments. Would Poppy have been able to check who A was by spying on them?"

"Presumably the location was always the same. Check the first date." There might be an address.

"I did. May 6." She leafed back. "There's an address here."

"Write it down. You never know. But if we could find out this easily, so could someone else. Question -- could she be clever enough?" Contrary to them, Poppy would not have been looking for this information.

"It's easier to act more stupid than to act more clever than you are," Randall remarked. Underestimating a suspect was one of the worst mistakes they could make. "But the way he kept track of his appointments, you don't need real intelligence to figure things out."

They continued searching without finding much of interest in the drawers and cabinets. It was close to a quarter past eleven when Scott tackled his last project, the waste paper basket. Most of its contents were not interesting either, except two draft letters to Nigel's solicitor.

Scott compared them, but they were nearly the same, save for some small corrections. The contents were very interesting, however. "Listen to this. Someone made him do a DNA test, no name given." It did not say it had to do with Anna, but it could very well be.

Randall did not have to think about that. "Clarissa. That proves what I said."

"Er..." he said meaningfully. "It only proves that someone wanted to make sure whether or not he was someone's father, not that it concerned Clarissa and Anna." But yes, his bet was on Clarissa as well.

That was a moot point to Randall. "Well, how many illegitimate secret children do you think he might have?"

"Most people don't have any." He wondered if he could still say that in this day and age.

"Exactly. Wouldn't it be highly coincidental if at the same time we discovered he had more than one?"

"It isn't actually so very coincidental because we are looking for information and some is bound to turn up," he reminded her.

"But it all fits, doesn't it?" Randall did not allow him to have any doubts.

Section Twenty-Three

"Any idea about the friendships here?" Scott asked Randall. They had sat in the main sitting room with some of the suspects for fifteen minutes, but hardly anyone had talked, so they had worked on their reports. The conversation had certainly not been enough to figure out who was whose friend. "I was thinking nobody really likes Sebastian much." Other than Poppy, people had mostly ignored his attempts at conversation. Edwin, Clarissa and Arthur had barely reacted, and Anna and Margaret had not even been present. Presumably they had already gone to bed.

"Why should they?" It was as if everyone had chosen to go to bed at the same time not to bed left alone with them. Only Sebastian had remained for a few more minutes until he had realised he could not find out what they had discovered so far. Randall was glad Sebastian had left them too. She still thought him a weasel.

"What about the doors and windows?" Scott inspected them. They were still open. Almost every room on the ground floor had doors leading into the garden. Everyone had simply gone to bed without giving any thought to locking up and he did not expect any of them to return. "Does the last one lock up or do they leave everything open during the night? The man was a millionaire. He would have been a good target for burglars. Or was he the one who always locked up?" He was a guest, but the policeman in him could not go to bed without doing anything about this.

"We'd better make a round of the house then." Randall agreed that it was best to check the doors, not only to prevent burglars from entering, but also because they had not yet solved the murder. It might look like an inside job at this moment, but leaving the house open could prove dangerous if they had not definitely ruled out the possibility that an outsider was after more than one inhabitant of the house.

In the library they ran into the housekeeper, who was checking the doors and windows in her bathrobe. She looked surprised to see them. "Oh, I didn't realise people were still up. Do you need the room, sir?"

He shook his head. He had not planned to search the library at this hour. Taking all the books off the shelves to see if any wills were hidden inside them was not a task that was high on his list of priorities. It might not even make that list at all. "We were wondering if we had to lock up. Everyone left us to go to bed. Do you usually take care of that?"

"Mr. Hargreaves used to check all doors before he went to bed at eleven. His daughter is often up later and she may open them again if it's hot. She doesn't care much about burglars." And by the sound of it she did not care about much else either. She was evidently not a favourite of the housekeeper's.

"So you often find the doors open in the morning?" Scott asked. If doors were open during the night, they would certainly be open during the day. An outsider could have come in very easily.

"Certainly during the summer and certainly when there are friends, which there usually are," she said in resignation. "It's a miracle that we've never been burgled, as far as we know."

That implied that nobody ever took an inventory. "Indeed." And it was a miracle that Nigel had not cared. If he had ever said anything to Poppy, she had not listened.

"But...it was his house and his properties, so it was his own responsibility. My husband and I live on the ground floor and we have a dog, but the house is so big that it couldn't possibly hear everything. I suppose it's really Miss Hargreaves' duty to lock up now, but I didn't think she would do it. I remembered just in time."

"Would you do for Miss Hargreaves what you wouldn't do for her father?" That puzzled him a bit.

"Oh no!" she said quickly. "I'm mainly doing it because we have guests at the moment. Besides, we don't know for sure who gets the house. I should at least try to prevent everything from getting stolen until I know."

That was true. It might even go to Anna. "Do you know to whom he might have left it?"

"No, but if you don't mind my saying so I would really like it if he left it to someone else. It was not my business to interfere, but I hope he realised that Miss Hargreaves would not be fit to own a house this size. And I had also no reason to suspect anything might change before I went out of service, or to wonder about who might inherit the house if he died."

That was also true. She would not work for more than another five years, he estimated. "Can we leave you to your round?" he asked. They would go to bed then, after a short detour.

"Of course. Good night."

Margaret did not know why she had woken up. She turned onto her other side and tried to fall asleep again, but she was distracted by faint sounds of scratching at the door. Scratching? She held her breath to be able to listen better. The door was locked, so nobody could come in easily, but perhaps the scratching meant that someone was trying to pick the lock. Why would someone be at her door in the middle of the night anyway? They could not have anything good in mind. She decided not to wait until she was murdered, but she slid out of bed.

She pulled the door to the balcony open and she almost threw herself out. She had done this once and she could do it again. The other time Scott had been there to catch her, but frankly, she would prefer a broken ankle to being murdered in her bed.

As she swung her legs over the railing, she realised just in time she could move sideways and pass the divider between the balconies of adjoining rooms on the outside of the railing, rather than jump down. She did so quickly and climbed back onto the balcony of the room next door.

Scott was rather surprised to see Margaret come in from the balcony. He was more surprised by her frightened appearance, however. He never would have guessed that something could scare her. What had happened? "What is it?"

"Someone was at my door, trying to get in." She looked from Scott to Randall. Both were fully dressed. One was sitting on the bed and one on the chair. What had they been doing up at this hour? She had been asleep already. It was almost midnight.

Scott jumped up immediately and checked the hallway. There was nothing. He frowned in the darkness as he looked to either side. Margaret had not wasted that much time, had she? The intruder had fled already. He returned to his room. A pursuit would be useless. Which way to go? There were two staircases, assuming either one had been used. The person might even have returned to his own room. "Nothing," he reported. "He or she probably fled when he heard you swing the balcony door open and he realised you were awake."

"There was really someone there," Margaret defended herself in case she would not be believed. She had not imagined the scratching noise. It had been real.

"I believe you," he said quietly. She was not the type to invent something like this and she had looked genuinely frightened. Someone had come to her room. That person could not have had any good intentions. She did not have friends here that would want to chat in the middle of the night and if so, they would knock. Would she still be safe in her room now? The assailant could return.

"I won't sleep anymore now. Would you mind if I sat here with my laptop?" She did not want to stay in her room all by herself. The intruder might return when he or she thought the coast was clear. She might be asleep then if she failed to stay awake.

If she was afraid the person was going to come back, Scott would not mind waiting for that person himself. It was not likely that anyone would look for Margaret in his room and he would like to know who it was. "We can switch rooms if you want." In all likeliness the attacker did not know Margaret had climbed onto his balcony. As far as he knew there was a divider between the two. How had she got through?

Margaret frowned. Of course a murderer might suspect the Inspector would suggest such a thing. It would not help to switch. He would simply come to the other room instead. "He'd expect us to switch. I don't want to be alone. I meant I could sit here while you slept." She gestured at the desk.

That was silly. They might as well both sleep. Why should she have to stay awake? "Sleep here." He did not see the problem. There were two beds.

Margaret smiled apologetically. The beds were too close together. They were practically one. "I'm afraid my principles forbid such a thing." She clasped her hands behind her back. She had always been quite strict about these matters and she was not yet prepared to relax her standards. She would rather stay up all night.

"Even in a murder case?" Randall asked unbelievingly. She would think an emergency allowed one to get over these things. Someone had to press on, considering that Scott would very likely not do so.

"I will not sleep in a room with a man I am not married to. I'd rather stay awake." She was silent for a few seconds as she tried to suppress the warmth that spread over her cheeks. She was not supposed to blush. They would think it strange. She was supposed to be a TV personality and everyone knew they were more like Edwin than like her, jumping from one bed into another. She was not like that. "It does not have anything to do with whether I like you as a person or not." In fact, she liked him a lot and that was precisely why she should not do this. She should be the way she always was.

"So it would be all right if you stayed awake, but not if you fell asleep?" Randall asked, trying to understand. It was probably not the man; it was the bed that posed the problem.

"Randall," Scott said warningly. He thought he could detect a blush. Margaret had the right not to feel comfortable with the idea. It was not Randall's place to question her, nor was it his place to wonder why she did not want this. He was not offended or disappointed. This was not an act. "You have a spare bed as well."

"I have no objections to that," Margaret said quickly, looking from one to the other. She was tired and would like to sleep, if that was possible. Randall's spare bed was acceptable to her. "Unless you had other plans?" They were not yet in their pyjamas. Maybe they were going out on some secret errand or they still had the case to discuss.

Randall understood Scott's warning. She would keep her mouth shut for as long as he was present. After that he had no control over her anymore and she could ask what she wanted. "No, we've just finished our quiet and uninterrupted tour of the house. I'm going to sleep now. You're welcome to join me." Once in the privacy of her room she could question Miss Maxwell about her principles. She told herself she was always interested in other people's beliefs. And she still had to question Margaret about her need to aggravate Scott, as well as about Clarissa's lover. There was plenty of work to do.

After saying good night, Margaret followed Randall to a rather messy room. "Thanks for the bed." She wondered which bed would be hers. Both were covered with clothes. "Where do I sleep, Sergeant?" Or rather, where should all those clothes go?

"Call me Lisa now that we're roommates," Randall called from the bathroom. She appeared a second later to clear a bed, throwing all clothes over a chair. "Are you religious?"

"No, I am not." Margaret had other worries than to wonder what Randall thought of her principles. "Do you think he believed me even if there was no one in sight when he checked?" She would have had serious doubts about it herself. Maybe there had really not been anyone there and she had imagined the sound. Why would anyone come to her door? She did not know anything and nobody knew what she had told the police so far.

"He doesn't think you made it up," Randall said with confidence. "He would rather react to a false alarm than ignore a genuine one." Especially where Margaret was concerned, she thought. "If you're not religious, why can't you stay with Scott? What if I told you he's not married or anything?" The idiot had probably not told her that yet.

But he was not married to her either. "He's a man."

What did that matter? "But one you find interesting. Why couldn't you give it a try?" It might even induce her to talk.

Margaret shook her head. Had she ever literally admitted that she found him interesting? She did not think she had. Then why did Randall say so? "I don't do tries."

"You're both so...never mind." Randall thought it was too early for a discussion on the subject. Some more time and introspection was required on either side.

"Both so what?" Margaret knew exactly what she was like.

"Why do you torment him?"

"I do?" Margaret lied. She rather suspected that she did.

"Maybe you don't do it on purpose, but you are aware of it. I saw it in your face and you're not even happy about it. Why couldn't you tell him who was with Clarissa?" There should not be any problem if she was not personally involved.

"Why couldn't he ask her?" she asked the obvious question.

"That's what I said. You're both so ... You don't tell him and he doesn't ask her. You're both idiots. Who was it? If you feel ashamed because you were embarrassed, don't be. I already said you were both idiots, so a little embarrassment is not going to ruin your image." If Margaret had not wanted to tell Scott, she might want to tell her, Randall reasoned. She was not a man.

Margaret decided to be a full-blown idiot then. "Edwin."

"Edwin." Randall was not surprised. Edwin was the prime candidate for illicit affairs in this house. "Do you feel anything for him? Is that why you didn't want to tell?" She thought she had spotted a friendship between the two, but nothing more. Perhaps she had not been observant enough. There might have been more in the past.

Margaret shook her head. "He's one of my better friends in that world. I like him like a brother or cousin. We had so much fun doing that children's show back in the early nineties and we became good friends." Her facial expression became strained. "I sometimes become a little worried if he does too many stupid things and I don't really know what he's up to at the moment. I've asked and not really received a good answer. I suspected that he was using Poppy to get that show that Arthur is thinking of -- I don't know if Arthur explained why he was here?"

Randall nodded.

"So he's using Poppy and Poppy is willing, so there's no need for me to tell him he's taking advantage of a girl. I stayed out of that, even though I disapprove. Working in that world I should be used to that sort of thing by now and I'm sure most people expect me to take part in it, but it has the opposite effect on me."

"You stay away from it and you criticise."

"To some extent, yes. But this thing with Clarissa I can't place. I cannot believe that women have become so interchangeable to him that he could switch from Poppy to Clarissa just like that -- and back! That is just disgusting. Maybe I just didn't want to know the truth, as lame as it sounds. I was shocked when I heard it was Edwin, even though I told myself that this is what people do. I've heard of worse, but those were people I didn't know. I went to the bathroom and sat there for a while until I could write again. I added some ranting parts here and there."

"What were you writing?"

Margaret shrugged. "A story. The good thing about stories is that if something happens there is always an appropriate passage where you can vent. I found one. I slowly got rid of my agitation while writing -- and I got a sore back."

Randall would too if she had to type sitting on the toilet seat. "So you went back into the room." And presumably the action next door was over by then.

"I wondered if perhaps I hadn't gone too far; if I hadn't inserted passages into the story that made no sense. It's easy to lose control. So I emailed it to a friend so she could check."

"What did she say?"

"It's a long story. She cannot have read it already. I should probably let it rest for a day or two and then look at it again. But...that's what happened."

"And why couldn't you tell Scott?" It was not such a difficult story at all and it had come out fairly smoothly, with very little blushing and no stammering at all.

"He is too bloody rational and I know this is not rational." Margaret yawned.

Too bloody rational? Randall was beginning to have her doubts about the DCI's rationality. And what could a too bloody rational man have to say about Margaret's explanation? Nothing. It made some sense. "Mind if I tell him what you told me?"

She shook her head. "No. Please tell him all, so he won't ask me." No matter that Randall thought her an idiot, Scott might still think her sane.

There was a knock on the door and Margaret immediately rolled off the bed, hiding behind it. "What are you doing?" Randall hissed, not understanding what she was doing. "I can't open the door dressed like this. You have to do it."

Margaret peered over the edge of the bed. "Me? No." She was still afraid and she was not going to open the door, as much as she disliked being afraid.

"The murderer wouldn't knock! I'll bet you it's Scott who wants to say good night to you. I can't appear in front of my boss in my underwear," she whispered in agitation. "Margaret, don't be such a wimp and open the door!"

Margaret did not stir yet. "Ask who it is." Then she might decide to come to the door. People should not find out she was here. The whole point of sleeping here was that nobody would guess her to be here. "I should not blow her cover and open the door to the first person who comes knocking. It might be the murderer pretending to need something innocent. For all we know the murderer might then return later when we're asleep," she whispered.

"Who is it?" Randall called softly. She rolled her eyes at Margaret. It could only be one person.

"Me," was the soft answer.

"It's him. Open the door," Randall ordered as she locked herself in the bathroom. "It's safe."

Margaret walked to the door and pulled it open to a tiny crack. "Who is it? Who is him?" She could not see a thing in the dark hallway, only a dark outline. The outline did not attack her or push against the door, so that was good.

"Margaret, it's me."

"Everyone is a me," she grumbled, pulling the door open wider.

"Iain then. What was the problem?" It had taken them ages to come to the door.

"I was behind the bed and Lisa was in her underwear. Neither of us felt like opening the door." She looked at him inquisitively when he made no move to come in.

"I took the liberty of getting you your key," he said, handing it to her. "I thought you'd have trouble getting back into your room tomorrow morning because you locked yourself out. I didn't think you'd want to climb back." He had also wanted to see how she had done it. It had been fairly easy.

That had completely slipped her mind. "I never thought of that. How stupid of me. Thank you." She was embarrassed because he had caught the oversight and not she.

"Sleep well," he said and he gave her a smile. He had nothing else to say, not if Randall was nearby with her ear pressed to the bathroom door.

"Good night." Margaret softly closed the door and fell on her bed.

"Did he kiss you good night?" Randall inquired curiously when she came out of the bathroom, seeing a rather interesting look on Margaret's face.

"Did you hear me hit him?" Margaret retorted. "I guess the answer is no."

Section Twenty-Four

People in the house did not eat breakfast together, but all at separate times, which was perhaps one of the reasons Nigel had insisted on turning dinner into such a formal affair. Margaret had gone running because she always did, she had told Randall. She had no longer been afraid. In the morning everything looked different. Randall had had breakfast all by herself and then she had gone upstairs. When she returned to see if Margaret was eating yet, she only saw Scott.

"Morning," he said, looking behind her. He only saw Randall.

She decided to jump in right away. This was what he wanted to know, not whether she slept well. She had almost expected him to come knocking on their door again that morning to see if they were all right. "Morning, sir. I have news for you. Miss Maxwell is not religious, but she has a deep dislike of the promiscuity practised in her circles. She says she cannot get used to it and her reaction is either --"

"-- scathing," Scott supplied. "Or critical." That was rather predictable, since that was how she reacted to anything. And perhaps it was also not so surprising to hear Margaret had a dislike of promiscuity. Not after last night, at any rate, although she had been far more extreme than merely having a dislike. He wondered what they had been talking about. It was something she would never discuss with him. That was clear.

Randall nodded sagely. "Indeed. Or she flees to the bathroom and sits on the toilet seat with her laptop because she is shocked and embarrassed at what she's hearing in the next room."

He would not have predicted that. Shocked and embarrassed? That was a little different from disgusted. "Who was it?" Had it been shocking because it was Nigel Hargreaves himself? But then he recalled she had said he had spoken to both parties. It could not have been Nigel in that case, because he was dead.

"Edwin Symonds."

"How could that be shocking or embarrassing?" he wondered. "I would have put my money on him." Who else could it have been? Arthur Moss? That was a lot harder to imagine than Edwin Symonds, though easier than Sebastian Hargreaves. He understood disapproval, but shock?

"He's a friend of hers."

He knew that, but that did not necessarily explain shock. Shock was something more unexpected, more inexplicable, something she could not have imagined beforehand. Edwin was an obvious flirt. Margaret could not possibly be blind to that. "How close?" Perhaps Edwin had flirted with Margaret as well -- or worse.

"Brother-like, sir. Nothing to worry about. She just doesn't like to see him get into situations she disapproves of." Randall observed him, but as usual his face betrayed nothing. That was a pity. She had been trying to elicit a more revealing reaction. He should have been relieved by her answer.

"I don't understand why she couldn't tell us." He had thought about it, but if there was nothing that affected Margaret personally and she did not have a closer bond with Symonds, he did not see why she could not have told them -- especially since she had been certain of the identity of Clarissa's visitor. She could tell Randall, why not him?

"Tell you, sir. She told me. Said you were -- and I quote -- too bloody rational and this wasn't rational." Randall loved it.

"What does that mean?" Scott exclaimed. Too bloody rational? He was rational, but not too bloody so. He had emotions, even if she thought he did not. He was merely good at keeping them under control. "How could she already know that during our first meeting?" She had neglected to tell him from the beginning and she could not possibly have known whether he was too rational or not.

A reaction at last. Yes, Randall loved it. "She's not as fearless as she seems, sir. She's afraid of you."

Yes, he knew that. She had told him so herself. "What for? She didn't do it." He was not going to arrest her. He was not going to do anything to her.

"Perhaps for the same reason you are afraid of her?" Randall suggested. She was onto something here, or else he would never have misunderstood her so deliberately.

He preferred to ignore that. He did not want to examine if and why he was afraid. It was none of Randall's business anyway. "Where is she?" She should have been with Randall.

He was going to like this one, Randall predicted. "Out running."

"Alone?" That might be worse than being a friend of Edwin's.

"Yes -- she says she can run faster than the rest of them put together." What did he think? That she had not talked about the risks with Margaret? That she had not tried to talk Margaret out of it? There had not been much she could do. If Margaret insisted on doing something, all they could do was warn her, but they could not stop her. Perhaps Scott's words would carry more weight, or perhaps Margaret had gone out deliberately, knowing it was risky. It was not unthinkable that she had felt embarrassed about her fears last night, so that she had wanted to prove that she was not a coward. It made some sense. There was nothing Randall could have done in that case. She felt relieved that it was not her fault.

"Why didn't you go with her?" He realised it would have been hard to stop Margaret from going, but Randall could at least have accompanied her.

"Sir!" Randall protested. "I hate running." That was what she had told Margaret too. If Margaret had wanted to go walking, she would have gone with her, but running was an entirely different matter.

"I'll have a word with her when she gets back." He would ask her not to do anything alone, but to stay close to people at all times and not to go running alone in the morning. If this was one of her habits, other people would know about it too. She might be able to outrun people, but not if they had a gun. Until they knew why someone was interested in Margaret, she should be careful.

Randall felt her boss should know one more thing. "I think she's trying to prove to you that she's not afraid."

Scott gave her a disturbed look. "This is not the right time to prove things to me. And she doesn't have to." What good would all that be if they found her dead?

"But..." Randall sighed and gave up. He was indeed too bloody rational.

It was not only the previous night that made her reflective. Margaret loved the early mornings when the birds were chirping and twittering louder than later in the day and rabbits sprang away into the undergrowth as she passed, though she almost felt as if she were intruding on their world.

She liked to stop and look, to sit quietly and hope a deer might show. People who ran too fast would never see any of this, she thought. They did not take a few minutes to appreciate the beauty of their surroundings, not, at least, the beauty that appeared if one blended in with the background respectfully. They ran and ran, thinking only of themselves.

She sat on a low branch near the drinking place and waited. She was not afraid here, not like she had been last night. If someone came for her here, she would run and disappear in the undergrowth like a rabbit. Her eyes were watchful and her ears were keen on picking up unusual sounds and movements. If all those rabbits up ahead suddenly ran off, she would too.

There were no deer today. That was a pity. She did not have all day and she had to run on. Besides, she was getting hungry because she had not eaten before she had set off.

Her contemplation of nature being over, she could finally devote some conscious thought to the night before. She was not proud of having been afraid. That was all she allowed herself to think on the subject of her fears. Naturally she thought of the coming night and where she should spend it. Perhaps she could stay with Randall again. That would be safe. One never knew what hearing about the contents of the will might change in people's behaviour. At least Lisa and she could turn life into a farce together. That was always amusing.

She was among those who stood nothing to inherit and she decided to snoop around in Poppy's room while the will was being read. The murderer would presumably attend the reading of the will, so she would be quite safe. She would undoubtedly hear later what had been in the will. She could employ her time much more efficiently and usefully.

Poppy was the one person who had a motive. She must not be tempted to ascribe a motive to Poppy because she did not like the girl, but the motive had to be really sound and convince any outsider.

Margaret jumped over a fallen branch. She wondered if Ailsa went running at Mrs. Scott's house. They always went running together during the holidays, but Ailsa had walked the dogs, she had said. That was good too. She wanted the girl to stay fit.

Her mind returned to Poppy. Could there be anything in her room that was worth finding? There was no murder weapon, but there might be gloves, though Margaret did not see why those should be kept after they had been used. It was very easy to bury them around here in the woods. The information that Poppy might have was not so complex that she would have had to write it down and hide the notes. Anna might be Nigel's daughter. Even Poppy could remember that.

It probably meant there was nothing to be found, but this was an opportunity she could not pass up. Poppy hardly ever stirred further than three steps from the house, which meant she could always be back in her room in less than a minute. She loved shopping, but not here, in this hellhole so far away from civilisation. There were no decent shops in towns with fewer than a million inhabitants -- or was the criterion five million nowadays? Margaret could not remember. The important thing was that Poppy would never be so unable to get to her room any time soon.

Section Twenty-Five

Scott had thought about Randall's words, but he had decided that he would speak to Edwin Symonds first if Margaret was out anyway. He had looked out of the windows on both sides of the house and he had not seen her. There was not much time to spare before the reading of the will and he had to get the time-consuming things sorted out first. His chat with Margaret could be short. She had a quick mind and would understand him right away. He was not going to be drawn into a discussion -- he would say his thing and move on, whatever she might reply.

He knew Edwin was still in the breakfast room because he had come in when they were leaving, so he returned. "Could we have a word in private, Mr. Symonds?"

"Sure," Edwin replied. He was eating and had nowhere to go.

They were alone in the room, so there was no need to go elsewhere. Scott sat down again on the chair he had vacated minutes before. "I'm curious why neither you nor Clarissa Edmondson told me about your encounter in Miss Edmondson's room on the day of the murder," he began. "The one that took place after you had gone upstairs to dress for dinner," he added in case there had been more encounters.

"Oh, so you found out. Did Clarissa tell you?" Edwin did not appear to be affected by the discovery, as if he had had nothing to hide. He only looked at the door, assuming Scott had seen Clarissa in the hall and heard about it there.

His unconcern begged the question why he had not revealed it himself. "No, Clarissa's neighbour told us." He counted on Edwin to know who that was.

"Clarissa's neighbour?" Edwin frowned as he counted the rooms. There was a sharp intake of breath when he realised who occupied the room next to Clarissa's. "Maggie? Oh God."

Scott was alert. "What does that mean, Mr. Symonds?" Was there more between them? Was it very bad if Margaret knew?

"It means ... Maggie is the one person you don't want to find out if you do something you shouldn't be doing. Maggie will of course never do it herself because she will not do anything without a ring on her finger and she is capable of phrasing her disapproval in such a way that you know you were despicable for doing it. You don't even need her to tell you that you were, though most of the time she does that too."

"That makes her sound insufferable." Which would be at odds with Scott's impression of her.

Edwin shrugged. "Just frank. She used to ask me if I would rather have her think it than say it. I told her to say it. I am frank with her too. Doesn't mean it doesn't hit home." He winced again.

"But she has not confronted you so far." Margaret had apparently employed some caution, despite her frankness.

"No. Not directly. She did ask me what I was up to. I wondered why she did that. Now I know." He looked reflective, playing with his coffee cup. "She knows... You might think that by now she should be used to me and I should be used to her reaction, but this situation is quite a bit worse than I've previously got myself into, you see." It would be quite useless to defend himself and say he did not usually have two women at once. It was understandable if people did not believe that.

Scott was glad to hear the man realised it himself to some extent. "Yes, she knows, but that doesn't mean she tells other people about it. It would have been more helpful of her if she had told me at once. But ... are you up to something?" Murder, perhaps?

Edwin looked at him directly. He might be a little on the immoral side when it came to women, but he was not guilty of anything worse than manipulation in other areas. "Of course. You don't get any jobs by waiting for people to come to you. I am after the same thing Poppy's after. She hadn't got it yet, because Nigel wasn't completely convinced that she was ready yet. But she'll never be. He was paying Maggie good money to fool himself, but she did not tell him what he wanted to hear. She doesn't lie, even if the truth means he wouldn't hire her again. She told him Poppy was hopeless and that no amount of training could make her any better, because she simply refused to listen." He paused for a few seconds. "Instead of becoming angry with Maggie, as he was wont to do with people who criticised Poppy -- just ask Clarissa -- he believed her. Enough to start doubting. That was my chance."

"Is this thing you're after the mysterious concept Arthur Moss was talking about?" Scott tried not to forget that he would also have to ask if Nigel had been angry with Clarissa lately. He supposed one could never be very successful in any business with too much modesty and a too passive attitude, yet he knew that the required attitude did not automatically include murder. Killing was for the ones who could not manage the natural way and Edwin had already proved that he could.

"Yes. Nigel was on the verge of seeing that Poppy would be crap."

That meant there might indeed be a chance for other candidates, such as Edwin himself, unless Nigel wanted to drop the project altogether if there was no place for Poppy. "And on the verge of sponsoring you instead?"

"That's what I was hoping. He might have seen more potential in Maggie, though. I couldn't get a good impression of that. Anyway, I know the project is not Maggie's style and she wasn't interested, so I wasn't concerned about having to compete with her."

Scott processed the information. "Was Poppy aware of her father's impending change of heart?" If so, she might have got a motive there, the second sort of motive that had become apparent so far. Everyone else had been better off with Nigel staying alive -- with the possible exceptions of Clarissa and Anna.

"Possibly. Her hatred of Maggie increased in the past week. Could be because she was being tutored again, but...who knows? It might have been because she feared Maggie was going to get the job she had set her sights on. Maggie certainly didn't behave any differently this week." He was not speaking about the last day. That was something different. He studied the Detective Chief Inspector closely.

With her father out of the way, Poppy might be able to do as she pleased with the money, even finance the project herself. "Who inherits Nigel's fortune?" The family's legal counsellors were not due until later. Only then would they be able to tell who benefited financially from his death.

"Poppy. Or so she thinks."

Scott found that interestingly phrased. "Why would you say that?" What did Symonds know? "Do you know more about the will?"

"Nigel was going to change his will. I don't know if he got the chance. Interesting that someone did him in, isn't it?"

He suggested that someone else had known about this as well. That was a definite alarm bell. Changes in the wills of rich men were always important, especially if the beneficiaries knew they were going to happen. "How do you know about that?" If Edwin knew, it was likely that Poppy had known too. "And what was going to change?"

"He had told Clarissa about it, but not precisely what he was going to change."

"Was this public knowledge? Who else knew?"

Edwin shook his head. "No. Look. This is not a random collection of guests. There are family and business ties everywhere, perhaps where you'd least expect them. It would take a while before I had explained them all. If people know things about each other, it doesn't mean it's public knowledge."

Scott was no fool. "So what was Clarissa's tie to Nigel Hargreaves?" He guessed either a mistress or former mistress, not a business associate. That would support Randall's idea.

"Anna was his daughter."

Randall would be smugger than smug if she heard this. If Edwin said so too it was probably true. Clarissa would have told him -- he mentioned her too often and they seemed to be close friends. It was something Poppy would not have liked, because she might have to share those millions with her half sister. If there was something she did not like it was sharing. Yet Poppy had never shown Anna any discourtesies, as far as he knew and how could she not know if even Edwin knew? "Ah. I see that complicates matters with regard to a will. Was he going to include her or cut her out?"

"He was going to leave her a more substantial sum. He hadn't told Clarissa how much. He's known for years that she was his daughter. He's been paying Clarissa regularly, but apparently something occurred to want him to give her some more consideration. I don't know what that is. He didn't tell Clarissa either. So you see she didn't have a reason to murder him." Edwin was a little anxious that he had inadvertently made her look suspicious.

It appeared as though Clarissa, or at least Anna, stood to gain and not to lose. "Why would Clarissa tell you about this?" Scott assumed Clarissa was smarter than to tell Poppy's boyfriend if she did not want Poppy to know.

"I'm..." It cost Edwin trouble to find the right words to describe the relationship. "I'm sorry. I've never been into older women. I don't know how to describe it. You can't call them girlfriend because they're no longer girls. Nothing I can think of fits the bill." He asked himself if this was unfair to Clarissa.

"You sleep with her and she confides in you," Scott remarked. It would not be his kind of arrangement, but he could describe it anyway. He wondered about Poppy.

"That sounds safe enough," Edwin agreed.

"How long have you been in that ... relationship?" He thought Edwin would probably not like the commitment implied by that term, but that was all he could come up with. Margaret had not thought it was a real relationship, or had she meant Edwin and Poppy? Perhaps nothing was real to Margaret if it was not legalised. Edwin had implied something like that. Still, Edwin seemed to have been in two relationships at the same time this week. They could not both be real.

Edwin was implying that he had been using Poppy and it was not unthinkable that Poppy might take extreme measures if she found out, hence the secrecy about his involvement with Clarissa. This really ought to learn people not to use others in the first place -- but Scott left it to Margaret to point that out to Edwin. He wondered if she had spent the entire Thursday night figuring this out and decided that she probably had. She had known these people for longer. She might have been concerned that her friend Edwin would be killed in a fit of jealousy. You never knew it could happen until it did. He sighed.

"Since this week, but she's confided in me for longer."

It sounded as if Edwin had been drawn in against his will. The poor fellow. All of them experienced something like this at some point, he supposed, and there was nothing they could do about it. Scott considered Clarissa a far better choice than Poppy, however, despite her age. Come to think of it, Clarissa was probably closer in age to Edwin that Poppy was. It was not so surprising in that case.

"Is this gathering a coincidence?" Scott asked. He wanted to know who had come here for fun and who had come here for business.

"To some extent. If you are asked to come, you ask who else will be there. A week ago I turned down the invitation. It didn't seem like a lot of fun to me then. This week was different. Maggie's good for a laugh, Arthur's good for my career and Clarissa's good for my ego. At least with the three of them we could have a decent round of bridge and Nigel sometimes played as well."

"Bridge!" Scott exclaimed in surprise. These people played bridge?

"What's wrong with bridge? Not all nights were like last night. You put a damper on things, Mr. Scott." On other nights they had done more things together, such as games. Last night they had mostly sat in silence, but if they did so every night nobody would enjoy coming here.

"I'm sorry. You're not the kind of people I'd connect to bridge. My mother plays." His mother played with many older people. These people were not old. He had never known the game had any appeal for the young and famous.

"So does mine and I get to come if my father can't make it," Edwin explained. "I had to learn. And the old ladies love me."

Scott readily believed that. The man could charm the socks off those old women. That was probably how he influenced his ratings. Every old people's home would be watching his shows. Was he also cold-blooded enough to commit a murder to advance his career? "So the atmosphere was all right then?"

"Apart from some personal struggles between the girls, yes."

"Which girls?"

"Poppy is jealous of Margaret. It's nothing serious. She'll grow out of it when she realises Margaret's life is not ideal either."

"So what exactly does she envy?" Scott did not think Poppy was going to grow out of anything any time soon.

"Fame. Status. You can get a taste of it by taking a famous boyfriend, but it's not quite the same. If this is your goal, you want it for yourself at some point. No string of famous boyfriends will do the trick. But mostly it piques her that Maggie doesn't do what she would do if she had the opportunity."

"How do you know all this?" Scott wondered if for boyfriend he could read girlfriend to apply to Edwin. He was already piecing things together for Poppy. Fame for herself. Money for herself. Of course. She would have wanted both.

"I've been around," Edwin said vaguely. He did not say whether he had had a string of famous girlfriends that had not satisfied his need for fame, or whether he had been used.

Scott was still puzzled about one point, however. "But is Margaret that famous? I'd never heard of her." Why did Poppy envy her and not someone even he had heard of?

Edwin stared. Then he began to laugh. "No wonder."

Scott did not deign to ask what that meant. Some things were best left alone.

Just when Margaret was debating whether to tell Scott and Randall about her plans or to have breakfast, the former approached her, his arms crossed. "Well..." he said slowly. "Your body language speaks of mischief. No denial will help you." He was looking rather mischievous himself.

"I have no idea how you see that." She was about to eat breakfast, but she had never considered that a very mischievous pastime. If he referred to her search plans, she would agree, but she did not know how he could possibly be aware of those.

"The eyes," he gestured. "The muscles ready for action."

She was impressed with his observational skills, because she did indeed feel as if she was about to run a race. She was excited and she had to suppress the urge to flex her muscles and jump around as a warming up. Running had not helped. "I take it you have a small problem with that?"

No, he did not. He quite liked seeing her like that. "Not if you do as I say and if you don't fall of any more balconies."

"Why should I do as you say?" Margaret challenged. She went into the breakfast room. It was empty, so they could easily continue their conversation. Why should she do as he said? She was an independent woman.

"Because it's sensible. Give me your mobile phone," he ordered.

"What for?" she asked as she handed it over, cursing herself both for reacting to an order and for revealing that she had taken her phone on her run to phone for help.

"I'll give you my number. I'll get yours and I'll inform you when suspects leave the room, so you know when to watch out." He had thought this all out and it was a perfect plan. The departing suspect would never know or guess that he knew what Margaret was doing.

"Do you know what I'm going to do too?" Margaret was fascinated by his insight, not to mention by her own willingness to do as he said, but she was not too preoccupied with that to help him key in her password.

"Yes, I think so." He knew he sounded awfully arrogant, but thankfully Margaret seemed more fascinated than offended.

"How?"

"You're either already going to do what I would ask you to do, or you'll change your plans at my request because you realise they are better than yours." He spoke quietly, as if there was no doubt in his mind that she would comply. She would agree that his plan was best. She had to.

"Why would I do that?" Why was she even listening? But it was really too intriguing to stop.

"I don't know. I thought you would. What's your number?" He took out his own mobile phone after giving hers back. He could not actually carry the ordering all the way through.

Margaret gave it. "You're scary," she complained softly. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to search Poppy's room," he said calmly, entering her number into his phone.

"God, you're really scary," Margaret said with an uncoordinated jump. How could he know she was planning to do that already?

He knew why she jumped. "I could just as easily say that you were scary because independently from me you thought of the same thing." He smiled widely. His faith in Margaret had been justified. She was a clever woman.

"Independently," she scoffed. She was fast losing her sense of independence here. She did things when he asked her and her verbal protest was as ineffective as it was insincere.

"I like independence." Thinking of the same things was not the same as dependence.

"Hmph. That's ironic, given that I no longer seem able to do anything independent, because you'll figure everything out."

"Margaret..." He had to hurry a bit. The reading of the will began soon. He had to get this arranged before that started and after arranging it he had to tell her not to go running alone anymore, but she might not like that. She was used to doing things alone; he could see that.

"Yes?"

"I'll let you know when you need to watch out. If anything happens, just ring me. Promise?" He looked at her to see whether she realised that he was being very serious.

"Yes, Iain."

He was relieved at her calmness, but the lack of a protest did not sit quite well with him. "As the name lends itself much less to cries of exasperation, or so I heard, I take it you're not exasperated."

There was a smile. "No, Iain." She knew he was right, if frustrating. She was not exasperated. She was going to be very serious about this.

He was nearing the end of his message. "And stay with people at all other times. Don't sleep in your own room again. Stay with Randall. She's not going to mind. I'll tell her not to." He thought they would be all right together.

"Yes, Iain. What about my lonely mission, though?" She would be alone with nobody to keep an eye on her.

"I'm keeping them away from you. If one escapes I'll phone you. You go to my room and hide under the bed, all right?"

He sounded so serious, but she could not believe him. It was ridiculous. Hiding under his bed. "You have got to be joking." How did he know she had hidden behind the bed last night?

"Yes, I am."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You're so funny."

"You've told me that before." But now for the difficult thing. He had to say that too before he left. "And Margaret?"

This was more serious, she could tell, and she reacted accordingly. "Yes, Iain?"

He was glad she could read him well enough to know when he was serious and when he was not. "Randall said you went running alone in order to prove to me that you were not afraid."

Her eyebrows shot up in confusion. "Er ... I did? I might have. But I never said that to Randall." Randall had been correct, though. That was exactly what she had wanted to prove. Why had the annoying woman told him? That was so embarrassing. She coloured.

He looked at her earnestly. Randall had been right. Margaret thought it a weakness to be afraid. "There is nothing wrong with being afraid, but there is something wrong with being reckless."

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. She wondered if she could pretend this had never happened so she could return to her own imperturbable self.

Iain glanced at his watch. He had to be quick now. Margaret, you don't have to prove anything. I'd rather have you stay whole. So would Ailsa." He reached out and grasped her hand for a second, then released it and walked away.

Margaret sat down and banged her head against the table when he had left the room, just because it seemed the thing to do in certain situations. "Gah, gah, gah!" But it was painful to bang her head, so she stopped, staring unseeingly at the objects and food on the table. She had to get herself together and she had to stop thinking about Iain's concern or her own reactions to that. There was a mission to accomplish and he had trusted it to her.

Back

Back to Novel Idea