Page 69 of A Curious Ending

‘What do you think Pinky meant earlier?’ Kate suddenly asked.

‘About Julian?’ Sarah said.

‘Yep,’ Kate responded.

Both Lara and Sarah shrugged helplessly. Sarah then said slowly, ‘I did try and get her to open up about Julian and Richard when we were drinking shots. But I don’t know. She did eventually admit to seeing Julian, but I can’t work out if she and Julian are a serious thing or if she’s just got sucked in by him. And as for Richard, she seemed really angry with him and then the next minute she was making excuses for him… who knows!’ She now turned to Lara. ‘And you think Jason tried to push you down the stairs tonight?’ She sounded stunned. Lara nodded. ‘But why?’ Sarah followed this quickly with, ‘Does he think you’re on to him? Is he our murderer? I mean for what? The tea set and maybe other stuff he’s been stealing.’

‘It might be worth a shedload of money,’ Kate suggested.

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah worried, ‘although,’ she continued, ‘Richard seemed to think he knew something about the money missing from his mother’s account, didn’t he?’ She sighed. ‘I just don’t know.’

Lara thought this summed up her own view too. She just didn’t know.

‘What stopped him?’ Sarah asked. ‘I mean you said you were up there all alone.’

Lara laughed. She hadn’t meant to but it was the sudden image that came to her mind of an old colonel instructing Becky about the gorillas of the Congo.

‘What?’ Kate and Sarah demanded, bemused.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Lara said lamely. ‘Just lucky I guess. I suddenly sat down on the top step, so he missed.’

‘Pathetic excuse,’ her Kindred Spirit observed.

‘Kate, did you find anything out from Joe?’ Lara asked, wanting to change the subject.

‘Well, yes and no,’ Kate replied. ‘I had a long chat with him about his family. They’re farmers and have lived around here for years. I know most of them as—’

‘You do their hair,’ Sarah, Lara and Abby finished for her.

Kate laughed. ‘Sure do. But the thing is, he looks like them. His dad and his brothers. I just don’t think there are any skeletons there.’ Kate looked more thoughtful. ‘He did open up a bit about Lady P. She did talk to him about the will and he said sometimes she called him, “Reggie”, which he thought was really weird. He said he wasn’t after “the old girl’s” money, and I think I believe him.’

‘You don’t sound completely sure,’ Lara prompted.

Kate held her hands out, palms open. ‘It was just some of the things he said when he was talking about his brothers. They’re all involved in farming and I think sometimes he feels like they look down on him for just being a gardener and woodman. You can’t deny a big slug of money might make them sit up and take notice.’

‘Ah, the problem of the younger son,’ Abby commented to no one in particular. ‘It was thus with Lady Foster’s youngest, Algernon. And he took matters into his own hands with a number of “shooting accidents”.’

Lara couldn’t help staring at her. ‘And?’

‘Eventually he inherited the estate. Until sadly he had to be shut away in an institution, oh, at a very young age. It appears one of his older brothers was so irritated by his untimely death he decided to haunt him.’

Lara laughed again.

‘Lara!’ Kate exclaimed. ‘What is it? What’s going on?’

Before Lara had the chance to answer. Or even come up with anything that would sound like a reasonable explanation, she was saved by Sarah, who exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it!’ and all attention was turned to her. Including Abby who sat down on the side of her chair.

‘I’ve got it,’ she repeated more mildly, smiling at them. ‘I knew I’d seen that china somewhere.’

‘What china?’ Kate asked.

‘You know, the china Lara’s been talking about. It’s been bugging me. What did you say it was?… Meissen?’ She darted a look at Lara. ‘You said it was an oriental design, with birds, is that right?’

‘Yeah,’ Lara confirmed.

‘And you said that Jason had a few bits of it? Teacup, plates, saucers?’

‘Yes.’ Lara and Kate were now staring fixedly back at Sarah.