She took me to the hall, where her son Gary was standing with Jacqui. When she sent them to find Sneedham to take me to my car, I asked if there was a back way out of the compound.

“Your son’s detectives are trailing me, and I would like to go home alone if I could.”

She cocked her head, her curls stiff, but her face showed a faint trace of mischief. “They are somewhat heavy-handed, these men, aren’t they? There’s a service drive behind the house—it will take you out onto Silverwood Lane. I’ll release the lock from the kitchen, but you must get out of the car to open the gate. Please close it behind you; it will relock itself.”

As the butler came toward us, she suddenly clasped my hands between her own. “Ms. Warshawski, if you have any idea at all where my grandson is, I beg you to tell me. He is—very dear to me. I have a private telephone number for my children and husband to use; you may call me on that.”

She watched me anxiously until I’d written the number down in my pocket diary, then turned me over to her butler.

38

Primitive Art

Mr. William and his wife were climbing into the Hummer when I got outside. The Porsche belonged to Jacqui and Gary, not surprisingly. The third car, a Jaguar sedan, probably belonged to Linus Rankin. The other children seemed to feel energetic enough, or safe enough, to come on foot.

I waited until Gary and William had driven off before leaving myself—I didn’t want William to see me using the drive behind the house that led to the service road.

What a lot of friction builds up over the years in such close quarters. The conflict between William and his father was the most obvious, but William had told me the brothers fought with each other; Jacqui, who spent lavishly on her wardrobe and worked slavishly on her figure, inspired her own share of hostility in the family. No wonder Annie Lisa had checked into a dreamworld, and her daughter into sex and drugs. Poor thing, how was Candace dealing with life in Korea?