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.“It was not originally my intention to disturb you further – though I’m afraid I shall have to leave a PC on guard for the time being.I’m still here myself because Ms Rook has been trying to get hold of Mr Sentance.I understand that she’s asked him to come to your house at around lunchtime.”“Oh, God, Sentance.I’d forgotten that I’d asked Jean to call him.But I hadn’t expected to share the meeting with you, DI Yates.”“I won’t intrude on your meeting, sir.If you wish, I’ll take Mr Sentance somewhere else to talk to him.”There was a small, sharp cry.It reminded Tim of the mewling of a hawk he’d seen at a country fair.It had been caged and shackled prior to taking part in a falconry display.He glanced at the child and saw that his face had turned white and was horribly contorted into a grimace of.what? It would be the most natural thing in the world for the boy to show sorrow, even uncontrollable grief.Instead what he was conveying, and most powerfully, was a mixture of disgust and anger.Tim hated the ‘Does he take sugar?’ approach to communicating with children, so he decided to risk talking to the boy directly.“Are you all right? Archie, isn’t it? I’m sorry.”“I don’t think that Archie’s in a fit state to talk now, DI Yates.I’ll take him to Mrs Briggs and come back to you when he’s settled.”“Of course.”As they brushed past him, Tim thought that he saw the child try to pull away from de Vries and that the father responded by tightening his grip on the boy’s hand.He was rather surprised to see de Vries knocking on the kitchen door before he opened it – and, now he thought of it, Jackie Briggs had not come running out to see Archie when they had arrived.He supposed that some kind of master-servant etiquette must be at work.Now that they were alone in the hallway, he turned to Ricky, who had just closed the front door.“Strange kid,” said Tim.“You can say that again.I know that anger’s supposed to be a part of grief, but he seems to be eaten up with it.I haven’t heard him say a word yet, either.”“Does anything else strike you as odd about him?” said Tim, lowering his voice.Ricky twigged at once and followed suit.“Just about everything about him strikes me as odd.What were you thinking of in particular?”“Do you know how old he is?”“I think he’s nine.Small for his age, isn’t he?”“Yes, there’s that, for a start.And then there are his parents.”“What do you mean?”“Think about it.Joanna de Vries was tall and blonde and probably, from the photographs here, on the plump side before she got ill.De Vries himself is shorter, granted, but very stocky and also very blond.How did they manage to have a child like him?”Ricky shrugged.“Stranger things have happened.I’ve read about white women who’ve unexpectedly given birth to black babies and traced it back to a black ancestor that they didn’t know about from four or five generations before.”“Yeah, right,” said Tim.“And I can think of a simpler explanation for that, too.But I’d take your point about Archie if I hadn’t found out something else about him as well.”“What’s that?”“Officially speaking, he doesn’t exist.”“Come again?”“No British birth certificate has been issued to a boy named Archie or Archibald de Vries during the past twenty years.I’ve had the records at Somerset House checked.”“Perhaps he’s adopted?”Tim shook his head.“There’s no record of that, either, or that the de Vries are registered as foster parents.”“Maybe they did adopt, but just didn’t change the boy’s name? They call him Archie de Vries, but his real name is still the one on his birth certificate?”“It’s possible, but I don’t think so.A man like Kevan de Vries would want to make sure that his son took his name and he’d carry out all the correct legal processes necessary, if only to ensure that there would be no arguments when it came to inheriting his wealth.”“Then I don’t understand.”“Joanna de Vries was diagnosed with leukaemia a long time ago, just a few years after her marriage, in fact.”“You’re right, Detective Inspector, she was.May I ask what bearing that can possibly have on your investigation into her death?” Kevan de Vries had reappeared silently while they were talking.He’d snapped right back into the cautious urbanity that he’d displayed on his first meeting with Tim.Tim detected an undercurrent of menace in his tone, nevertheless.Forty-SixJuliet was fingering Florence’s notebook, which had been restored to her by the breakfast orderly.Its fall to the floor had knocked the corners of the boards.With her forefinger, Juliet traced the outline of the flower that had been affixed to its padded cover.She encountered a small tear in the thick paper that was almost concealed by the flower.Curious, but not wishing to damage the journal further, she held it up to scrutinise it.The harsh yellow overhead lights in the ward made it difficult to inspect, but, by turning on her bedside lamp and holding the journal close to its gentler, paler light, she was able to see through the tear that the padding under the cover consisted of some dark, ochre-coloured paper.She could see only a tiny piece of it – it measured perhaps half a square centimetre – but on this small section she could clearly see writing, or at least a few inked strokes that had evidently been formed by a pen.Juliet found herself immediately thrust into a dilemma.She realised that the ochre paper might have no significance at all; it could just be scrap that the manufacturer of the notebook had used to pad out the cover.On the other hand, it might help her to understand what had happened at Laurieston House when Florence Jacobs had been its nominal chatelaine.But neither she nor Katrin owned the notebook.It was the property of Jackie Briggs.She couldn’t inflict further damage on the cover to extract the ochre paper without asking Jackie for permission.She decided to call Katrin.“I’m happy to call Jackie Briggs and ask her if she minds,” said Katrin.“But I can’t do it today.You obviously haven’t heard from Tim yet.Joanna de Vries was found dead in the cellar at Laurieston House in the early hours of this morning.Tim’s there at the moment, with Kevan de Vries and his son.I think that Mrs Briggs is helping to look after the boy.”“That’s terrible news! I feel so sorry for the child.And his father: Kevan de Vries isn’t the sort of person you take to immediately, but I’ve never been entirely convinced that he’s a villain, either.But how did Joanna de Vries die? Was it suicide? It’s strange that that cellar has claimed yet another life.It’s as if it’s jinxed.”“Tim said something like that when he called me.I think he was actually repeating something that Kevan de Vries said to him.I don’t think they know how she died, yet.Stuart Salkeld’s taken the body away to do a post mortem.It could have been an accident.But Tim says that what’s most odd about it is that she was in the cellar at all.Apparently it always gave her the creeps.”“I’m not surprised! The whole house gives me the creeps.But she couldn’t have known about the skeletons in the cellar until recently
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