‘We could all have a dram together,’ he suggested, using what he felt was suitable jargon for the area, ‘to let our hair down after school, as it were.’ Louisa caught Marnie’s eye and they exchanged an amused look: this could be difficult for the Colonel since the sparse fringe of grey surrounding his gleaming pate was cropped ultra close in the military fashion of his day. The Heslingtons were the first to accept the invitation, Stanley ungraciously saying that if he didn’t get out from this bloody place for a bit he’d blow a gasket. He received a reproachful look from his wife, which he chose to ignore. Bunty, Joyce and Morwenna all said they’d like to go too if they could be given a lift and after a slight hesitation Marnie offered to take them in her car. She gave Louisa an enquiring look, hoping she would join them, but Louisa shook her head, mainly because she wanted to talk to Isobel but also partly because Christopher had declined the invitation and she thought it might be a chance to find out what had happened to him and get to know him better. It never occurred to her that Marnie might be hoping for support because she never found social situations at all threatening herself. Marnie was conscious of a twinge of disappointment after the unexpected closeness she and Louisa had achieved that afternoon, but she felt no particular surprise. Rejection, in however trivial a way, was part of her expectation of any attempts at friendship.

Catherine excused herself on the grounds that she had work to do. Just as Louisa was about to go in search of Christopher, she saw him escaping purposefully, whisky in hand, across the courtyard to his room, so she decided to look for Isobel first.

She found her in the old nursery. Giles had indeed had a genuine commitment, a practice session of the band which he both organised and regularly played in with various friends and his daughter Amy when she was at home. They were due to play at a big Highland ball in a few weeks’ time and needed to run through their programme. Often they practised in the theatre at Glendrochatt with Isobel providing food and the whole rehearsal turning into a highly convivial evening, but because of the writing course they had arranged to meet in someone else’s house tonight. Isobel had originally intended to dine with the group, but since the incident at teatime the idea of Bunty, oozing goodwill, but running on a burning scent of curiosity, had proved too much for her and she had taken her supper through to the nursery which had been Giles’s refuge in his often lonely childhood, and which the Grants now used as their family retreat when the house was full of visiting strangers.