To the hilt [en]

'I'm sure,' Himself said with courteous worldliness, 'that we can come to a civilised solution to our differences out of court. It would be so unwise, don't you agree, to hang out the brewery's private troubles on the public washing line? That's why your father thought it best to swallow in silence the frightful financial losses. He wouldn't, I feel sure, want you to discard out of pique the fortune he worked so hard to give you.'

I didn't look at Patsy. Her hatred of me always drastically interfered with her common sense. I'd taken so many insults from her over the years that it was only for Ivan's memory that I now cared what happened to the brewery. I wanted to go back to the mountains. It was like a physical ache.

Oliver Grantchester droned on, a committee man to his fingertips. The executors would be doing this and the executors would be doing that, and as my uncle made no protest or suggestion, nor did I.

Tobias finally broke up the session by parking a chewed toothpick and apologising to my mother that he had a plane to catch: he was off to Paris for the weekend.

'I'll be back on Monday,' he said to me. 'In the office on Tuesday, if you have any brilliant ideas.'

Patsy, overhearing, demanded to know what I could possibly have brilliant ideas about.

'Finding the brewery's lost millions,' he said and, correctly interpreting and anticipating her automatic denigration, added, 'and you should pray, Mrs Benchmark, that he does have a brilliant idea, because those lost millions are yours now, don't you understand? See you,' he finished, lightly punching my arm. 'Don't play on the railway lines.'

When Tobias had gone, Chris asked me what I wanted him to do.

'Follow Surtees,' I said promptly. 'I want to know where he is.'

Chris looked down at his clothes. 'He knows what I look like.'

'Go up two floors,' I said. Turn right up there. You'll find my room. Take what you need. There's money on the chest of drawers. Take it.'

He nodded and quietly left the room, and only Emily, appearing at my elbow, seemed to notice.

'Are you bedding Christina?' she asked blandly. 'She knows you well.'

I nearly laughed but made it a smile. 'She's not my bed mate and never will be.'

'She never takes her eyes off you.'

'How's Golden Malt?'

Tine. You're exasperating.'

'Has Surtees bothered you?'

Emily glanced at him where he stood across the room talking to Grantchester and stabbing the air with a vigorous forefinger. 'He hasn't found the horse. He won't, either. I've driven over to Jimmy Jennings's place twice. It's all quiet there. And actually I think the change of scene is doing the horse good. He was really on his toes two days ago.'

'He's yours now.'

She blinked hard. 'Did you know Ivan was going to do that?'

I nodded. 'He told me.'

'I liked him.'

It seemed natural to me to put my arms round her. She hugged me back.

'Jimmy showed me your painting of the jockey,' she said. 'He told me you gave him courage.'

I silently kissed her hair. We had said everything we needed to. She stepped back, composed, and went to comfort my mother.

People gradually left. Himself (positively grinning) patted me on the shoulder, told me he would be in residence in his London home for the following ten days, asserted his intention of going to Cheltenham races and kissed my mother's cheek affectionately, calling her 'my dear, dear Vivienne'.

Emily waved goodbye. Fussy Desmond Finch twittered away. Margaret Morden paid her respects. Oliver Grantchester ponderously closed his briefcase.

Chris Young ran lightly down the stairs, crossed past the open door of the drawing-room and left quickly by the front door.

'Who was that?' asked my mother unsuspiciously, watching through the window as the fleeting backview of cropped light brown hair, loose jacket, rolled up jeans and too-big trainers made a fast sloppy shuffle out of sight.

'One of the caterers?' I casually guessed.

She lost interest. 'Did you talk to Connie Hall from next door?'

'Yes, I did.'

She looked distressed. 'Patsy told me what Connie Hall said about Ivan searching the rubbish bags.'

Patsy would. I said, 'Mrs Hall didn't want to upset you.'

My mother said unhappily, 'I think Patsy has gone down to the kitchen to talk to Lois about it.'

I glanced round the room. Surtees, Xenia, Grantchester still, but no Patsy.

'Let's go down, then,' I suggested, and moved her with me below stairs, where Lois was tossing her head and bridling with umbrage at any insinuation that her work wasn't perfect. Edna stood beside her, nodding rhythmically in support.

The caterers, spread all around the extensive room, were packing away their equipment. I threaded a path through them, my mother following, and fetched up by Patsy's side in time to hear Lois saying indignantly, '… of course I threw the box away. There were only a couple of tissues left in it, which I used. I gave Sir Ivan a fresh box, what's wrong with that?

'Didn't you check whether anything was written on the bottom of the box you threw away?'

'Of course not,' Lois said scornfully. 'Whoever looks on the bottom of empty tissue-boxes?'

'But you must have known my father wrote on the bottom of a tissue-box all the time.'

'Why should I know that?'

'You kept moving his notepad onto the desk, out of his reach.'

Patsy was right, of course, but predictably (like most legislation) she achieved the opposite result to that intended.

Lois inflated her lungs and stuck out her considerable frontage, her hoity-toity level at boiling-over point. 'Sir Ivan never complained,' she announced with self-righteousness, 'and if you're implying some stupid tissue-box gave him a heart attack and that it's my fault I'll… I'll… I'll consult my lawyer!'

She tossed her head grandly. Everyone knew she didn't have a lawyer. Even Patsy wasn't fool enough to point it out.

My mother, looking exhausted, said soothingly, 'Of course it wasn't your fault, Lois.' Turning to go, she stopped and said to me, 'I think I'll go up to my sitting-room. Alexander, would you bring me some tea?'

'Of course.'

'Patsy…' My mother hesitated, '… thank you, dear, for arranging everything so well. I couldn't have done it. Ivan would have been so pleased.'

She went slowly and desolately out of the kitchen and Patsy spoiled the moment by giving me the grim glare of habit.

'Go on, say it,' she said. 'You could have done it better.'

'No, I couldn't. It was a brilliantly managed funeral, and she's right, Ivan would have been proud.' I meant it sincerely, which she didn't believe.

She said bitterly over her shoulder, stalking away, 'I can do without your sarcasm,' and Edna, touching my arm, said kindly, 'You go on up, I'll make Lady Westering's tea.'

Lois, in unspent pique, slammed a few pots together to make a noise. She had been Patsy's appointee and, I guessed, Patsy's informant as to my comings and goings in that house, but she was discovering, as everyone did in the end, that Patsy's beauty and charm were questionable pointers to her core nature.

I followed her up the stairs to where my mother was bidding goodbye on the doorstep to Oliver Grantchester and, after him, to Patsy, Surtees and Xenia.

A taxi cruised past slowly on the road outside. Chris Young didn't look our way out of the window, but I saw his profile clearly. I wouldn't have known how to begin to follow Surtees, but when Chris was trying he seldom lost him. Since the dust-up in Emily's yard, Surtees hadn't often left home without a tail.

I went up to my mother's sitting-room where she soon joined me, followed by Edna with the tea. When Edna had gone I poured the hot liquid and squeezed lemon slices and handed the tea as she liked it to a woman who looked frail and spent and unable to answer questions.