‘“Dear Mrs Hoskings.” Pretty writing Mrs Pollyput’s got, hasn’t she?’

‘What does she say? Read it.’

‘Okay. Dear etcetera, you won’t want that twice will you? No. Well it says, “gone away for a change. I’ll let you know when I get back. Help yourself to anything you think might spoil from the garden.”’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes, that’s all Mr Pier. D’you think she’d mind if I took the raspberries, the birds will get them else. Shall I –’

John rang off. Matilda released her nose and sniffed, wriggling it up and down like a rabbit. Piers. How ludicrous John calling himself Piers. Piers rang a distant bell far back in her mind. Piers? No, it meant nothing, recalled nothing, it couldn’t. Why this insistence on Piers? Sir John sounded all right. Claud said it was snobbery, that John was a common name. Claud had bet Anabel ten pounds John would be elevated in the Birthday List, not the New Year’s, it being the more recherché of the two to enter the lists as Sir Piers in June rather than hustle in in the New Year when everyone was too hung over to notice. Not that he will allow anyone to fail to notice. ‘He will never get further than a knighthood in his occupation. Decorous recognition for services rendered. No life peerage for the likes of he.’ Claud’s voice in her mind, always that note of affectionate mockery to keep one at arm’s length, his arm’s length, Claud’s. No good trying to get close to that one. A slippery character, Claud, the more lovable for his inaccessibility. Standing with one hand on the rail of the Rayburn, Matilda thought of her youngest child. No hook there to hold her, however tenuously. Why did his saying ‘occupation’ in that tone of voice, almost as though John –

‘What a superlative smell.’ Hugh stood in the doorway looking in.

‘You made me jump.’ Matilda pretended to jump. He grinned.

‘No wonder nobody recognized you,’ Matilda said. ‘You don’t look like your photo at all in daylight.’

‘I have rested. Besides –’

‘Besides what?’

‘I told you that photograph is one of my brother. He really has a huge nose but now he’s grown a moustache it’s not so noticeable.’

‘The Major?’

‘Yes. There’s been a mistake, a mix-up.’

‘Why hasn’t he said?’

‘He’s abroad. He may not know, he might even be loyal.’

‘She was his mother too.’

‘He inherits.’

‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Like some breakfast?’

‘Please.’

‘I was thinking I should call the police.’

‘Shall you?’

‘No.’ Matilda, getting coffee, had her back to him. Neither spoke for a while. She put a loaf and butter on the table, marmalade in its pot – Cooper’s.

‘If it were not for your interference I should be happily dead by now.’ Rage suddenly choked her, tears blinded, the hand carrying the coffee pot trembled.