Thea was stunned to the point of immobility. The person calling to her was both intensely familiar and wholly alien. ‘Jocelyn! What …? How …?’

Her sister laughed. ‘Well, I was actually coming to find you, so it’s not really such a coincidence.’ She stared hard at Clovis. ‘But I never expected to find you with a gentleman friend.’ Her expression added, And such a beautiful one, too.

This development was becoming more disastrous with every passing second. Jocelyn was the youngest in the Johnstone family, the mischief-maker and their mother’s favourite. She was also the mother of five children, several stone heavier than Thea, and four inches taller. Nobody would ever take them for sisters. But they had grown up as ‘the little ones’, both of them in possession of a strand of fecklessness and defiance in the face of two critical and impatient older siblings.

‘Jocelyn,’ she said again. ‘This is Clovis. My sister,’ she explained to him. ‘Why were you looking for me?’

‘A few reasons. I gather there’s been a murder. I 189wondered how you were coping. And I wanted to talk to you about Jessica. Toni’s just been to see her, and she thinks there might be something going on that you ought to know about.’

Jessica and Toni were their respective daughters; cousins who had always liked each other, despite six years’ difference in age.

‘Oh,’ said Thea, thinking that it must have been at least a week since she had given her daughter a single thought. ‘She hasn’t said anything to me.’

‘No … Well …’ said Jocelyn with a small sigh. ‘Did you say “Clovis”? That’s a very unusual name.’

‘French,’ he told her, having followed their fractured exchanges with undisguised interest. ‘Thanks to my grandmother.’

‘You do know she’s married, don’t you?’

‘Joss!’ Thea was mortified.

Clovis just laughed. ‘Yes indeed. And I know and respect her husband. You don’t have to worry.’

Jocelyn’s expression was complicated. Dubious, concerned, curious – and more. ‘Okay,’ she said.

‘Where’s your car?’ Thea asked her sister. ‘Why have you come to Quenington? Are you on your own?’

‘I’m going,’ said Clovis. ‘Nice to meet you, Jocelyn.’ He got into his car and flashed an all-embracing smile at them both. ‘Be seeing you.’ And he drove off.

They watched him go before Jocelyn said, ‘My car’s up by that gorgeous archway. I thought I should go and have a look at it while I was in the area. Noel told me about it – all that guff about Knights Templar is an obsession 190with him at the moment.’ Noel was her youngest, eleven years old and something of a geek. Thea was extremely fond of Noel.

‘So is he with you?’ Thea looked around hopefully.

‘No – he came here with his father a few weekends ago. They’ve taken to Sunday outings, just the two of them. It’s rather nice.’

‘I should get back to Barnsley,’ said Thea. ‘I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on everything at the house.’