After a while I unpinned the Quorn envelope from my shirt pocket. I lifted the golf picture off its hook and turned it over, and I slotted the envelope between the canvas and the frame, in the lower left-hand corner, so that it was held there securely, out of sight.
I hung the picture back on its hook and went out to see how lunch and life was passing in the kitchen.
Although not natural friends my mother and Audrey were being punctiliously civil to each other and were talking about how to pot cuttings from geraniums. I listened with the disjointed unreality-perception of an alien. At any minute the brewery might be breaking into the house in Bloxham. One should dip the slant-cut stem into fertiliser, Audrey said, and stick it into a peat container full of potting compost.
A large car rolled up the drive and stopped outside the kitchen window. The driver, a chauffeur in a dark navy blue suit, flat cap with shiny peak, and black leather gloves, climbed out and looked enquiringly at the building, and I went out to talk to him.
'Where am I going?' he said.
'Somewhere like Tor Bay. Find a good hotel with a sea view. Make them happy.'
'They?'
'My mother, my wife and the sister of the man who stole the brewery's money. Hide them.'
'Safe from Surtees?'
'And other thugs.'
'Your mother and your wife might recognise me.'
'Not without the wig, the rouge, the mascara, the high heels and the white frills.'
Chris Young grinned. 'I'll phone you when I've parked them,' he said.
'What's your name today?'
'Uttley.'
When I went back into the kitchen Emily, having made herself a sandwich, was talking to the head lad on the telephone.
'I'll be away this weekend… no, I'll phone you…' She gave her instructions about the horses. 'Severance runs at Fontwell tomorrow. I'll talk to the owners, don't forget to send the colours…'
She finished the details and hung up; not happy, not reassured.
'My dears,' I said lightly, looking at all three women, 'just have a good time.'
My mother asked, 'But why are we going? I don't really understand.'
'Um… Emily knows. It's to do with hostages. A hostage is a lever. If you hold a hostage you hold a lever. I'm afraid, if any of you were taken hostage, that I might have to do what I don't want to do, so I want you safely out of sight, and if that sounds a bit improbable and melodramatic, then it's better than being sorry. So go and enjoy yourselves… and please don't tell anyone where you are, and only use Emily's mobile phone if you have to phone someone, like Emily to her head lad, because it wouldn't be much fun to be taken hostage.'
'You might get your throat cut,' Emily said nonchalantly, munching her sandwich, and although my mother and Audrey Newton looked suitably horrified, it seemed Emily's words did the trick.
'How long are we going for?' my mother asked.
'Monday or Tuesday,' I said. Or Wednesday or Thursday. I had no idea.
I hugged my mother goodbye and kissed Emily and warmly clasped Audrey Newton's soft hand.
The chauffeur's name is Mr Uttley,' I told them.
'Call me C.Y.,' he said, and winked at me, and drove them cheerfully away.
I sat in Ivan's car in a shopping centre's car park and tried to reach Margaret Morden by phone.
She was at a meeting, her office reported, and no, they couldn't break in with an urgent message, the meeting was out of town, and she would not be available until Monday, and even then she had meetings all day.
So kind.
Tobias had said he was going to Paris: back in the office on Tuesday.
I hated weekends. Other people's weekends. In my usual life, weekends flowed indistinguishably, work continuing regardless of the day. I sat indecisively, working out what to do next, and jumped when the mobile phone rang in my hand.
It was, surprisingly, Himself.
'Where are you?' he said.
'In the car somewhere. God knows where.'
'And your mother?'
'Gone away for a long weekend with friends.'
'So, if you're alone, come for a drink.'
'Do you mean in London?'
'Of course in London.'
'I'll be an hour or so.'
I drove to Chesham Place, home of the Earl in the capital, and parked on a meter.
Himself had a single malt ready, a sign of good humour.
'A good send-off, yesterday,' he observed, pouring generously. 'Ivan would have approved.'
'Yes.'
After a long silence he said, 'What's on your mind, Al?' I didn't answer at once and he said, 'I know your silences, so what gives?'
'Well…' I said, searching for an image, something pictorial, 'it's as if there's a high wall with a path along each side of it, stretching into the distance,' I said, 'and I am on one side of the wall and Patsy and some other people are on the other side, and we are all trying to go in the same direction to find the same pot of gold at the end, and I can't see what they are doing and they can't see what I am doing. The way forward on both sides of the wall is difficult and full of pot-holes and one keeps making mistakes.'
He listened, frowning.
I went on, 'Yesterday at the wake, Mrs Connie Hall, who lives next door to Ivan, told me that, on the night he died, Ivan was very upset because he couldn't find a tissue-box that had a phone number written on the bottom of it. He couldn't find it because it had been thrown away. Mrs Hall, the neighbour, told Patsy the same thing, so there we are, Patsy and I, one on each side of the wall, starting off together.' I paused. 'My mother told me that it was she who had written the telephone number on the bottom of the box, and it was something to do with someone we met in Leicestershire. She had forgotten all about it until yesterday, because of Ivan dying. The woman we had met in Leicestershire was Norman Quorn's sister, but I didn't know her name, so I phoned the brewery and asked them for it, which was a very stupid mistake.'
'But, Al,' Himself said, 'how could it have been a mistake?'
'Because,' I said, 'it set an alarm bell somewhere jangling.'
'What alarm bell?'
'It gave rise to the question - Why did I suddenly want to know Norman Quorn's sister's name and phone number? And I think that, on Patsy's side of the wall, messages and speculations began fizzing about.'
Himself sat still, listening.
I said, 'This morning I found out Norman Quorn's sister's name and address from the police in Leicestershire, where Norman Quorn's body was found, and I took my mother to see her, because she said she had a list that her brother had given her, that she had been going to give to Ivan. She said she would give it to my mother, and she did.' I drank some whisky. 'On the other side of the wall, which I can only guess at, someone decided to ask Norman Quorn's sister if her brother had given her anything to look after before he went on his holidays, and she told them that yes he had, but it was nothing very important, only some little list.' I stopped.
Himself said, 'What little list?'
'I think it is the signpost to the pot of gold. In fact, I don't think the gold can be found without it.'
Himself stared.
'So here I am on one side of the wall and, on the other side of the wall, they will know by now I have the list. So if you want to know what's troubling me, it is how to find the treasure safely.'
'But Al…'
They know I've had a lot of practice in hiding things, starting with the Kinloch hilt.'
'I'm sorry about that. Sorry, I mean, that I talked to Ivan about it when Patsy could hear.'
'It can't be helped.'
'And you've hidden the list?'
'Sort of.'
'And - am I understanding you right - you think that list alone will lead to the brewery's lost money?'