“Very well. I agree. Off you go, then! I wouldn’t want to keep you from your mystery solving.” She turned on her heel, flashed a cheeky back boleo with her right leg and set off back across the lawn.

Now, who in hell was that? Redfyre asked himself as he scrambled down from his perch. Mystery solving? The wretched girl had just added another one to his list.

“Ah! There you are, Johnny darling!”

Redfyre had dashed into his front room and grabbed the telephone receiver before it stopped ringing.

“And that’s precisely where you should not be!” said his aunt Henrietta in reprimand. “You ought to be here in my drawing room, sipping your first sherry. You’re expected for lunch here in Madingley. Had you forgotten? Your cousin Hugh arrived half an hour ago, and he’s making himself useful. And very much at home . . .”

Redfyre sank disconsolately into his chair, and starting with an anguished “Lord! Can it really be one o’clock already?” began to mumble his excuses. A short but punchy account of his action-packed morning followed.

Aunt Hetty was all understanding. “How exciting! I can’t wait to hear about it. I shall go back into the drawing room and give out the reason for your delay at once. Discovering and ministering to a corpse in a graveyard, I shall say. That will entertain the girls! We have two female guests, new to the village—absolute corkers, both!—and they’re dying to meet my dashing nephew. So, nephew, dash! It’s ten minutes on your cycle. You’ll be in time for the soup if I press everyone to have a second aperitif. Oh, and Johnny? Graveyards? Corpses? Be very sure to wash your hands, won’t you?”

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Grantchester, Sunday, the 18th of May, 1924

“Emma and Genevieve! Well, for once, Aunt, you did not exaggerate!” Redfyre said. “Top-notch young ladies, in their different ways. Sensible Emma or sparkling Genevieve? I think I can squeeze another cup out of this,” he said, waving the coffeepot temptingly under her nose. Companionably, they finished off the last of the coffee, smiling to hear intermittent snores from Uncle Gerald’s armchair and pleased to be able to speak frankly to each other in the peace of the drawing room.

“I thought you’d like them. They’ll be a welcome addition to the village. Sociable, outspoken, active . . .”

“Potential recruits, are you thinking, for your illicit group of female desperadoes? Your hive of hexagons, buzzing with charming workers who tempt a man with honey and then sting him in the derrière? Your Third Way Forward Suffragists?”