To the psychologically minded, the room at the top of the house—which Fleur thought of as the games room—also said much about her. It was not as expansive a room as the others in the house and may have served in more formal times as a servants’ room or pantry.

Its dimensions did not do immediate justice to its contents. A dealer in the trade of antique toys, dolls, games, books and comics would have felt a definite increase in heart rate stumbling across this hoard. No gift or present that Fleur had ever received since her initial rattle had been thrown away. From the age of three until she went away to board, she had been given a present each day that she managed to get through without crying more than five times. Even without that the total would still have taken some tallying. The room was not visited regularly. It was saved for those occasions when a depression incurable by her other ‘toys’ overtook her. She would put on an old track suit, lock herself in the games room, and re-catalogue her childhood playthings. Dusting some, fondling others, looking at her Rupert annuals or reading her mother’s treasured Dimsie omnibus, she would recall her deepest childhood fear; returning home from school to find the house deserted, her parents gone.

The seed of the Midsummer’s Eve party had been sown during a consultation with a clairvoyant. This was a fairly regular practice, as she often found the present tedious and hungered for details of an incident-filled future. She shopped for Pythians with a zest women usually reserve for shoes. In a way, Zeno could be held responsible in part for the gathering, because on 22 September of the previous year—knowing Fleur’s penchant for astromancy, to say nothing of the ‘lady Virgo’s’ delight in being surprised—he had arranged for the most impressive seer (employed by Heads of State) to pay her a call.

When the seer arrived at her residence and rang the bell, Fleur opened the door and found herself looking into the salty eyes of a seeming wayfarer.

“I’m Colin,” he said and, as an afterthought, “Colin the clairvoyant.” Fleur’s eyes rounded, a reflex when caught unawares.

“Oh,” she said, verbally echoing her expression.

“I’m your birthday present.”’ He smiled, which buckled his broken nose even more. “From Zeno.”

“From Zeno . . . what a dear. How wonderful.” She was still somewhat uncertain. “Would you like to come in?”

“I would,” said Colin, and did. He sat in the needle-pointed armchair, and explained a little about himself while Vanella fixed him a double espresso on the machine in the ground-floor kitchen. No clairvoyance was offered immediately, and Fleur felt that perhaps Zeno’s investment had been misguided. Yet, upon returning from the lavatory, where he had briefly ‘spent a penny’, he announced that the custodian of the house had revealed himself.

“Where?”

“In the loo, while I was washing my hands.” This was new territory for Fleur, who had not received a soothsayer at home before.