‘Does she know what to look for?’
‘Anything about how the place is financed, a list of donors, a rough idea of how much comes in and how much goes out, anything that Amanda draws personally.’
‘That should do it.’
‘And if she can get it into a conversation with Nora, she’s going to ask how the agency was set up, where the money came from.’
‘Good. And you’re liaising with her how?’
‘She’s going to ring me on Monday when she goes out for her lunch – she goes when Nora comes back.’
He got home late and tired to find a family game of Monopoly going on before the fire, with Joanna, Matthew and Kate on the floor and his father in the armchair, leaning forward to shake the dice on to the board.
‘What a wholesome picture,’ he said. ‘You look like an advert for Bournvita.’
‘What’s Bournvita?’ Kate asked.
‘It’s a chocolate biscuit,’ Matthew told her.
‘No, that’s a Bourbon,’ Mr Slider corrected. ‘Hello, son. Hard day?’
Slider nodded. Joanna had got up and came to kiss him, giving him a quick look of concern.
‘Yuk!’ Kate shouted. ‘Get a room, you two.’
‘Is that all the hello I get from you, brat?’ Slider said. ‘No kiss, no hug?’
‘It’s my turn next,’ she excused herself. ‘Come on, Grandad. Hurry up and move. You’ve landed on the Strand.’ She snatched up the dice even before Mr Slider had finished moving his boot. She was very competitive, whatever she played – and lucky. Slider could see she had the biggest piles of money in front of her, and would have betted that she owned Park Lane and Mayfair, which both sported threatening hotels.
Slider looked across at his son, who smiled his small, reserved smile, and said, ‘’Lo, Dad.’
Slider longed to hug him, or at the very least to brush the hair back from his brow. But Matthew was at the age when any physical contact or exhibition of affection was excruciatingly embarrassing and likely to be responded to with a shamefaced, ‘Gerroff!’
‘How’s it going?’ Slider asked him.
‘She’s winning,’ he said.
‘I bet she’s the top hat, as well,’ Slider said.
‘Yeah,’ said Matthew. ‘Miss Moneybags.’ And they shared a warming look of complicity.
‘Have you eaten?’ Joanna asked him.
‘Have you?’ he countered.
‘We waited a bit, but the children were hungry, so we ate about half an hour ago. I’ll get you something.’
‘Oh no!’ Kate wailed, looking up from landing on Community Chest and taking a card. ‘You can’t stop the game.’
‘I won’t be long,’ Joanna said. ‘You can take my goes.’
‘It’s not the same. It’ll spoil it!’
Slider remembered the passion of childhood for the moment in hand, the outrage that grown-ups didn’t care in the same way. ‘I can get myself something. You sit down and play.’
‘No, I’ll do the getting. You sit down and play, take over my hand,’ Joanna said firmly. She was right, of course. The children wanted to be with him – and he wanted to be with them, too, only he was tired and his head was full of the Rogers case and it was hard to summon up enthusiasm for Monopoly against that background. But he saw so little of them, he must make the effort.
‘As long as I don’t have to be the thimble,’ he said, sitting down.
Kate looked into the box. ‘You can be the battleship, Daddy. No one’s being that yet. And it’s your go next.’ Suddenly she gave him a dazzling smile, and reached over and pecked him on the cheek, and his heart melted. She so rarely handed out favours, and for a very different reason from Matthew – his was diffidence, hers was a liking to be in control. She was utterly self-absorbed and a manipulative little minx, which he supposed was par for the course these days, but it made such caresses as did come his way even more to be treasured.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling. ‘What was that for?’
‘It’s my birthday,’ she said. ‘Collect ten pounds from each player. Cough up, Daddy.’
When the game finally finished, Mr Slider went back to his own quarters and the children elected to watch television for an hour before bed. Slider finally got together with his beloved in the kitchen, where she did the washing up while he leaned against the wall watching her and having a small whisky, at her insistence, because she said he looked as though he needed it.
‘So what’s the bad news?’ she asked.
‘How do you know there’s bad news?’
‘Hey, it’s me,’ she said. ‘I can read you like a book.’
‘Probably not a best-seller,’ he said.
‘Best-sellers are overrated. You’re more like a much-loved classic you come back to again and again. You’re the Pride and Prejudice of husbands.’
He had to smile. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t you at least have made it something manly and full of testosterone-fuelled battles?’
‘What would a woman want with one of those?’
‘You have a point.’
‘So what’s the bad news?’ she reverted. ‘You have to work tomorrow?’
‘Got it in one. I have to go to Southwold.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘I don’t know. It’s about two and half hours to drive it. What happens then depends on what we find.’
‘We?’
‘Atherton’s going with me.’
‘Oh.’ She thought a moment. ‘Well, I half expected you wouldn’t be around. I thought, as it’s supposed to be nice tomorrow, we’d go and have a picnic in Kew Gardens, have a good run around, and look at the Steam Museum on the way back. I wonder if Emily would like to join us.’
He pushed himself off the wall, put his arms round her and kissed the back of her neck. She stopped washing up for a moment to turn her head to him. ‘What was that for?’
‘I can’t tell you how comforting it is that you don’t give me hell for having to work,’ he said.
‘What use would that be?’
‘No use. But some people would still give a person hell,’ he said. ‘Some people did.’
‘Silly. We don’t have enough time together as it is. Why waste it on hell?’
‘Wonder woman,’ he said, and let her go.
‘Is the case going to break soon?’ she asked. ‘Is that what the trip’s about?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can only hope so.’
Kate appeared in the doorway, eyes everywhere. ‘Were you two smooching again?’
‘It’s only the second smooch of the evening,’ Joanna complained. ‘You make it sound like non-stop romance.’
‘Well it’s yukky when old people do it.’
‘I thought you were watching TV,’ said Slider pointedly.
‘Adverts,’ Kate said. ‘I’m hungry again. Is there any cake?’
Kate was always eating, and was as thin as a rake. Good genes – or a hyperactive metabolism. Or both. Irene was the same. Long may it last, Slider thought.
‘I could make everyone Bournvita,’ Joanna said. She and Slider exchanged an amused look.
‘I didn’t know you had any,’ Slider said. ‘Do they still make it?’
‘I’ve got hot chocolate. It’s much the same.’
‘Oh, yeah, hot chocolate,’ Kate said. ‘Cool!’
‘Not, it’ll be hot,’ Slider corrected.
Kate looked scornful. ‘You’re not a bit funny, you know,’ she said with imperishable dignity.
‘Southwold, the last posh seaside resort,’ Atherton said. ‘Houses here cost as much as in London.’
‘Didn’t I read somewhere that the government’s letting the coastal defences go?’
‘Yes, and they say the rivers on either side of Southwold will back up and refill the marshes and the town will become an island. At which point,’ Atherton said, ‘the townsfolk will probably rejoice. Well, we’ve got a nice day for it.’ The bitter north wind had dropped at last, and although it was overcast, at least it was dry. ‘It was nice of Joanna to think of inviting Emily to the picnic. She was a bit miffed that I was having to work.’