She shrugged. "Does it matter?" He thought how deeply Jack's departure had affected her. He had never encountered Sarah's bitterness before.
"Of course it matters," he said bluntly. "If you're worried, then I suggest I come with you now to sort it out with the police. Where's the sense in tearing yourself apart over something that may never happen?"
She smiled faintly. "It was an act," she said. "I got very tired of them discussing me as if I wasn't there. I might have been as dead as Mathilda. It's the money that excites them."
Unfair, he thought. Both men had gone out of their way to sympathize with the difficult situation in which Sarah found herself but she was determined to see everyone as an enemy. Including himself? Impossible to judge. He turned his glass, letting the sober wall-lights gleam through the red wine. "Do you want Jack back? Is that why you're so angry? Or are you just jealous because he's found someone else?"
"Can you be just jealous?"
"You know what I mean."
She smiled again, a bitter smile that twisted her mouth. "But I don't, Keith. I've been jealous for years. Jealous of his art, jealous of his women, jealous of his talent, jealous of him and his ability to bedazzle every damn person he meets. What I feel now is nothing like the jealousy I've felt before. Perhaps it's there but, if it is, it's overlaid with so many other emotions that it's difficult to isolate."
Keith frowned. "What do you mean, his ability to bedazzle everyone he meets? I can't stand the man, never have been able to."
"But you think about him. Mostly with irritation and anger, I expect, but you do think about him. How many other men do you dwell on with the compulsion with which you dwell on Jack? The policeman who's dogging my tracks put it rather welclass="underline" he said: 'He leaves something of a vacuum in his wake.' " She held Keith's gaze. "That's one of the best descriptions I've ever heard of him, because it's true. At the moment I'm living in a vacuum and I'm not enjoying it. For the first time in my life I do not know what to do and it frightens me."
"Then cut your losses and formalize the separation. Make the decision to start again. Uncertainty is frightening. Certainty never is."
With a sigh she pushed her plate to one side. "You sound like my mother. She has a homily for every situation and it drives me mad. Try telling a condemned man that certainty isn't frightening. I doubt he'd agree with you."
Keith beckoned for the bill. "At the risk of blotting my copybook again I suggest you go for a long walk by the sea and blow the cobwebs out of your head. You're allowing sentiment to cloud your judgement. There are only two things to remember at a time like this: one, you told Jack to leave, not he you; and two, you had good reasons for doing so. It doesn't matter how lonely, how rejected or how jealous you feel now, it cannot affect the central issue, namely that you and Jack do not get on as man and wife. My advice is to get yourself a decent husband who'll stand by you when you need him."
She laughed suddenly. "There's not much hope of that. The decent ones are all spoken for."
"And whose fault's that? You had your chance, but you chose not to take it." He handed a credit card to the waitress, watched her walk away to the counter, then transferred his gaze to Sarah. "I don't suppose you'll ever know how much you hurt me, not unless what you're feeling now is something like the hurt that I felt then."
She didn't answer immediately. "Now who's being sentimental?" she said at last, but he thought he saw dampness in her eyes again. "You've forgotten that you only found me truly desirable after you lost me, and by then it was too late." And the tragedy was, he knew she was right.
The door of Cedar House opened six inches in answer to Keith's ring. He smiled pleasantly. "Mrs. Lascelles?"
A tiny frown creased her forehead. "Yes."
"I'm Jack Blakeney's solicitor. I'm told he's staying here."
She didn't answer.
"May I come in and talk to him? I've driven all the way from London."
"He's not here at the moment."
"Do you know where I can find him? It is important."
She gave an indifferent shrug. "What's your name? I'll tell him you called."
"Keith Smollett."
She closed the door.
Violet Orloff, sheltering by the corner of the house, beckoned to him as he walked back to his car. "I do hope you won't think I'm interfering," she said breathily, "but I couldn't help overhearing what you said. She's in a funny mood at the moment, won't talk to anyone, and if you've come all the way from London..." She left the rest of the sentence unsaid.
Keith nodded. "I have, so if you can tell me where Jack is I'd be very grateful."
She cast a nervous sideways glance towards Joanna's door, then gestured rapidly to the path running round the far corner of the house. "In the garden," she whispered. "In the summer-house. He's using it as a studio." She shook her head. "But don't tell her I told you. I thought Mathilda's tongue was wicked, but Joanna's-" she cast her eyes to heaven, "she calls Mr. Blakeney a homosexual." She shooed at him. "Quickly now, or she'll see you talking to me and Duncan would be furious. He's so afraid, you know."
Somewhat bewildered by this eccentric behaviour, Keith nodded his thanks and followed the same route that Sarah had taken with Ruth. Despite the cold, the doors to the summer-house stood open and he could hear a woman singing a Cole Porter song as he approached across the lawn. The voice was unmistakable, rich and haunting, backed by a simple piano accompaniment.
Every time we say goodbye, I die a little,
Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,
Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,
Think so little of me they allow you to go...
Keith paused in the entrance. "Since when were you a Cleo Laine fan, Jack? I thought Sarah was the aficionado." He pressed the eject button on the recorder and removed the tape to read the handwritten label on the front. "Well, well. Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is the one I made for her before you married. Does she know you've got it?"
Jack surveyed him through half-closed lids. He was on the point of telling him to put his hackles down, his customary response to Smollett's invariably critical opening remarks, when he thought better of it. For once, he was pleased to see the pompous bastard. In fact, he admitted to himself, he was so damn pleased he could be persuaded to change the habits of the last six years and greet him as a friend instead of a marriage-breaking incubus. He stuck his paintbrush in a jar of turpentine and wiped his hands down the front of his jumper, producing a huge paint-smeared palm as a peace-offering. "I suppose Sarah's sent you."
Keith pretended not to see the hand, instead eyed the sleeping-bag, abandoned in a dishevelled heap in a corner, then pulled forward a chair. "No," he said, folding himself into it. "I left her in Poole. She doesn't know I'm here. I've come to try and talk some sense into you." He studied the portrait. "Mrs. Lascelles presumably."
Jack crossed his arms. "What do you think?"
"Of her or the portrait?"
"Either."
"I only saw six inches of her through the gap in the door." He cocked his head on one side to examine the painting. "You've been pretty heavy-handed with the purples. What is she, a nymphomaniac? Or is that just wishful thinking on your part?"
Jack lowered himself gingerly into the chair opposite-the cold and the floorboards were wreaking havoc on the muscles of his back-and wondered if the gentlemanly thing was to bop Keith on the nose now or wait till the man was on guard. "Not all the time," he said, answering the question seriously, "only when she's stoned."