Days Twenty-Five to Twenty-Seven: 3,694 words

He was beginning to get a bit hacked off, frankly. Although he was sure that Susan hadn’t meant to get embroiled in a web of intrigue, murder, gun-wielding bankers and Napoleonic furniture, at least she had the small consolation that the furniture in question was – if not actually hers – probably going to earn her a fairly sizeable reward when it was returned to the Jarrold Collection. In the meantime, however, he had lost his job, his car wasn’t working, he would probably have to move out of his flat due to lack of money, and to top it all off he had a slight pain in his shoulder where he’d been wrestling with the van. Maybe the others had been too busy, shocked, or worried to ask him how he felt, but if they had asked him, he would have probably been honest and said he felt pretty shit, really, all things considered. He had been the one who’d hired the van, and – at least for now – paid for it, with money he didn’t have on a credit card he should never have taken out, as for a while now it had been bucking under the weight of the bills, meals, one month’s rent, and games for the Playstation that he’d put on it. And he would be the one they’d come running after asking for the money to replace the van – which was probably, what, fifteen grand or something? Add to that the almost certain fact that he would never be able to be insured on any vehicle ever again, and things weren’t really looking up. He entered the maze, for the second time in two days, with a certain malaise and his head in a haze, and followed the sounds of the other two.

“Come on,” Susan called urgently from further ahead. “We don’t have time to mess around.”

“I’m coming as fast as I can,” Paul said crossly. “How do you know your way through here without a map, anyway?”

“I don’t,” Susan replied from the other side of the hedge. “That’s why we need you to catch up.”

He rounded the hedge at the far end and almost ran into them. “We took a wrong turn, I think,” Susan puffed. “I think it’s this way, but can we look at the map?”

Paul brought the tiny map up on his phone again. “We’ll have to be careful how much we use this,” he cautioned, “I haven’t charged the battery in two days – it’s running down, look.”

Susan didn’t reply; she was studying the map. “OK,” she said finally. “I think it’s this way.” She set off, followed by Xavier, who seemed to be in a daze: understandably, perhaps, given that he had just seen an old friend of his shot dead. “Hey, Susan,” Paul called, in an urgent half-whisper, as she charged ahead.

“What,” she called back.

“Can I remind you that the only reason we’re here is because of that maniac shooting at us. I think we may have managed to lose him, what with your daredevil car-jack stunt. We’ve certainly lost our only means of getting out of here alive, now we don’t have a van –”

“I’m sure we’ll find a golf buggy if we’re desperate,” she puffed, jogging.

“That against a BMW is even worse than a bloody Transit,” Paul pointed out. “The fact is, though, if he’s still chasing us he’ll have had to run up the drive, and he didn’t look fit. But he does know the layout of the house. So can we stop a minute,” he added, an agonised look on his face as he came to a halt, doubled over and put his hands on his knees for a few moments, breathing heavily, “and come up with a plan?”

Susan stopped, ten yards ahead. Xavier almost ran into her.

“Are you all right?” she asked him, noticing for the first time, properly, how washed-out he looked.

“I…” Xavier seemed unable to speak, the colour drained even more than usual from his normally pale face. “I still can’t believe that – that Damien –”

Against all her expectations, Susan held out her arms and gave Xavier a big, comforting hug. At least, she hoped it might be comforting. “Nor can I,” she admitted. “Up until today I’d never actually even seen a gun, let alone had one… pointed at me…”

A tear appeared in one of Xavier’s eyes, slid down the side of his nose, and dissolved in his mouth. “He didn’t deserve that,” he said, his voice quavering. “Nobody does. I wish to God I’d never involved him.”

“How were you to know?” Susan asked, as Paul walked up, rubbing his shoulder. “If any of us had thought for a moment that Arbuthnot might go to those lengths, we’d have – I don’t know, gone to the police – earlier.” She looked at Paul for some backup.

“We need a plan,” he repeated flatly. “I’m getting pretty pissed off with being in this bloody maze all the bloody time, in the dark, with no idea what we’re doing.”

“We’ve got to hole up somewhere before we think of a plan,” Susan said reasonably. “If he’s still after us, he’s got a gun, and whether he’s going to get arrested or not, I’d rather be alive when he does. So let’s get to the middle, go underground, and find somewhere we can hide for a couple of hours or something until we know the coast’s clear.”

“Are you sure the cabinets are safe?”

“How the hell should I know, Paul?” Susan said. “Stop asking me all these questions. At the moment I couldn’t care less about them, frankly, I’m just trying to get us out of here alive.”

They pressed on, not saying much, and presently got to the corridor with the bridge going over the top of it. They were having to lead Xavier a bit by this point; he still seemed shell-shocked, and Susan was trying to chivvy him along as gently as she could, knowing that if they stopped he would probably not be able to carry on. Several times, Paul hung back a bit and slowed down, listening for any sounds from Arbuthnot; but he couldn’t hear anything, and after a few times of doing that satisfied himself that they weren’t being followed.

“Right,” Susan said to Xavier, trying to keep his spirits up, “it’s just round the corner at the end, and we’re pretty much there.”

“Must we continue?” Xavier implored. “Somebody has been killed, which is illegal, by a handgun – which is also illegal. In a public place, too. The police will be combing the scene now, there’ll be a murder inquiry, TV appeals and reconstructions on Crimewatch. We’ll be implicated. The more we run, the more guilty we’ll look. We should go to them immediately, offer ourselves up as witnesses, and stop running away.”

“I don’t think he’s following us,” Paul concurred. “Xavier may be right.”

“I want to be sure,” Susan persisted. “At least we know that once we’re in the cellars, it’s pretty secure. I don’t think Arbuthnot would know the code on the pagoda door.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” Paul said. “Xavier’s right. The more we run, the guiltier we look, until we look so guilty that they’ll take us in anyway. It’s been a couple of hours since the shooting, and it’s impossible that it won’t have been discovered by now.”

“Well, OK,” Susan said forcefully, “whatever you say, Paul. I agree, we don’t want to be implicated. But at the same time, we’ve first got to get past a banker with murderous intentions. And as you said earlier, it hardly looks innocent of us to have trashed the van, does it? It’s got bullet holes in it that will match Arbuthnot’s gun, and we’ve also probably damaged the house when we crashed the van into it.”

Paul sighed. “Look, I just don’t want to get us in the shit,” he said wearily, running his hands through his hair. “Any more than we already are, that is.”

“How about a compromise, then,” Susan suggested. “We get into the pagoda, then at least we know we’re safe if Arbuthnot is following us. Then we call the police, tell them where we are, and meet them outside the maze or something.”

Paul considered this. “Xavier? What do you think?”

Xavier also considered this. “Is there somewhere in the pagoda that I can sit down?” he asked.

“I think there’s a bench just outside it,” Paul offered, “if that’s any good.”

“Well, then,” Xavier relented, “that’s OK by me.”

Five minutes later, they rounded the corner by the bridge, which was silhouetted eerily in the full moonlight, crossed over the hedgerows into the central eye with the pagoda in it, and caught sight of a body.

For a few moments, they froze where they were. It was difficult to tell who it was; the figure was lying in the shadow of one of the hedges and wearing dark clothes, and none of them felt willing to approach it. The shooting earlier had been a sort of overload for Susan and Paul, at least, neither of whom had seen a dead body before, and to have to deal with another one within the space of a couple of hours was almost too much. It was Paul, finally, who gingerly tiptoed down the steps towards the prone figure, gave it a gentle prod with his foot to confirm it was dead, and bent over to see who it was.

He straightened up. “I think it’s Thimble,” he said, ashen-faced.

“Oh shit,” Xavier mumbled.

“Right,” Susan said. “We phone the police right now, before things get any more complicated.”

Forty minutes later, the three of them sat in the back of a police van, not speaking, as it hurtled them towards Eastwestchester police station.

*

It was not a very pleasant evening. They were interviewed, one after another, by a police sergeant who seemed to have already made up his mind that they were guilty. The only coffee that was available was utterly disgusting and served in a plastic cup from a dispenser that looked like it had been there for twenty years, and it did nothing to staunch Susan’s cravings for caffeine. Paul tried to keep calm, but got irritable when it was suggested in his interview that he was guilty of the murder of much-loved local antiques expert Damien Casablanca; because he felt so innocent, and yet so flustered, he was on the back foot and ended up overjustifying things and probably sounding more guilty. Why was it so hard to remain calm in circumstances like this?

“I didn’t do it,” he spluttered. “None of us were involved at all – I’ll tell you exactly what happened,” and he described the sequence of events, as far as he could remember them. He could feel the policeman’s eyes boring into his skull as he recounted Arbuthnot’s sudden appearance from behind his car, their headlong dash to escape, and the reason why they’d ended up wrecking an otherwise perfectly usable van against the wall of Opocapopopoulos House.

“So why did you throw a car jack at Mr Arbuthnot’s car?” the policeman asked. “Would you not say that that was rather a dangerous thing to do?”

“That wasn’t my idea,” Paul admitted. “We were in a Transit van, and he was in a BMW. He’d have overtaken us at the first available opportunity, so we felt we had to do something to – to stop him.” He stopped uncertainly. “Don’t look at me like that,” he pleaded.

“What do you mean, ‘like that’? I’m just looking at you,” the policeman said levelly. His name was Yarrow, in case you were wondering. “I’m just trying to find out why it is that we’ve got two dead bodies, a wrecked van, and the only people who have guilt written all over their faces are you three.”

“Three dead bodies,” Paul reminded him, “if you count –” he had to stop himself from saying “Bartholomew” – “Mr Opocapopopoulos.”

“His is a separate case,” Yarrow said dismissively. “We don’t think there’s any reason to connect his death to these two. Can we get back to the point? We were just trying to find out why you fled the scene of a crime if you aren’t guilty of it.”

“We weren’t fleeing the scene of a crime,” Paul said indignantly, “we were running away from a lunatic with a gun. Who had just shot someone in cold blood. Have you arrested him, by the way?”

“Arrested who?”

“Algernon Arbuthnot, of course,” Paul said, perplexed. “The one with the gun, remember?”

“There’s no proof Arbuthnot even had a gun, let alone tried to shoot you,” Yarrow said flatly. “All I’ve got to go on is your statement. Which doesn’t tie in at all well with Arbuthnot’s reputation as a highly-respected, successful business leader.”

“But –” Paul was beginning to think he’d gone mad. “I saw him there. We all did!”

“Yes, you’ve obviously concocted a very convincing story,” Yarrow said sarcastically. “Yet if you look at it, you’ve got far more of a reason to shoot Mr Casablanca, since he was the one who’d told you the cabinets your sister inherited were stolen.”

“Hang on,” Paul interjected. “We were perfectly OK with that. We’d gone down to the Jarrold Collection so that we could meet up with the museum director and arrange to give these cabinets back. We didn’t, for a moment, feel any bitterness towards Casablanca at all. Xavier – Mr Franks – had known Mr Casablanca for years, and as you can see he’s pretty shaken up about his death –”

“An overwhelming proportion of murders are committed by someone who knows the deceased,” Yarrow cut in. “Just because your uncle knew Mr Casablanca is no reason for him not to be killed by him.”

“None of us carry guns,” Paul protested weakly, “or ever have. Or would even know where to get one if we wanted one, which we don’t.”

“Your uncle professes an interest in the occult, though, doesn’t he?” the policeman mused. “He’s cropped up on the old radar a few times.” He frisbeed a few sheets of paper towards Paul; they were photocopied news articles from the local paper, mainly about local residents complaining about Xavier’s activities.

“These are from years ago,” Paul frowned, studying them. “He hasn’t had his hair like that since his early thirties.”

“Nevertheless,” Yarrow said. “I think this is anything but a clear-cut case. On the one hand, we have the three of you: speeding, causing reckless criminal damage to a hired vehicle, driving dangerously, endangering the lives of others, fleeing the scene of a crime, damaging property, trespassing, etcetera etcetera. On the other hand, we have Mr Arbuthnot, a pillar of the community, whose posh car is a write-off due to your actions, and who is currently too shaken up to talk about what happened.”

“And what about the gun, then?” Paul spluttered. “You’re not denying that a gun was used to shoot Mr Casablanca in the head, presumably. Have you found it?”

“Not yet,” Yarrow said, “but we will be searching your and Miss Franks’ property in due course.”

“Hang on,” Paul said, “if you’re searching our homes, are you doing the same to Mr Arbuthnot’s?”

“We will,” Yarrow said smoothly, “as soon as we can find the money, and do the paperwork, to travel to all of Mr Arbuthnot’s properties, which are located in the Canary Islands, Monaco, New York, London and Ipswitch.”

“So, the upshot of that is…?” Paul said. “You’re going to let a rich man walk free, but just because you can investigate us, because it’s cheap, you will?”

“We will do whatever we can,” Yarrow said, “to bring this investigation to a speedy close.” There was a pause while he and Paul looked at each other. “Interview ends,” he said, and stopped the cassette recorder.

*

Outside, Susan had been sitting next to Xavier, nursing her plastic cup of shit coffee. Xavier was still not saying much, so after a period of trying to cajole him into better spirits, she’d given up and resorted to staring at the wall, until the man sitting in the hard plastic chair opposite her had interrupted her thoughts.

“What’re you in here for, then?”

“Oh,” Susan began, and then decided not to go into it. “We had our car stolen,” she said. “How about you?”

“Oh, mine is a woeful story, an’ no mistake,” began the other. “Up ’til recently, I enjoyed a wondeful lifestyle, truly wonderful. I drove a number of fine cars around the country – around the world, in fact. I worked for a lovely gent, couldn’t have been a better man to work for. Then one day, I come back, and find ’im gawn. I mean, I was expectin’ to find him one place, and he was somewhere else. Mr Opoca – Opopopo – Ocadopop –”

Susan leaned forward in her chair. “Opocapopopoulos?” she prompted in an urgent voice.

“Yeah, that’s ’im,” said the other man. “Not a name I ever found easy to say, and I certainly never bloody learned to spell it. You know ’im, then?”

Susan resisted the urge to be truthful. “Well, you can hardly avoid the name,” she said, trying to paper over the lie with a half-laugh. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Cabin,” said the man. “Orson Cabin. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss –” “Franks,” Susan replied, shaking his hand guardedly. “Susan Franks. Go on? You were saying –”

“Yeah,” Cabin said, withdrawing a large handkerchief from his top pocket and blowing his nose loudly, “Mr O goes an’ gets himself killed. I shit myself, I really did. I ran away for a few weeks to spend a bit o’ time with me mum, I was so worried about what might ’appen to me if I stayed.”

“Why?” Susan asked. “If you weren’t guilty?”

“I ain’t guilty,” Cabin protested. “I just din’t want the police to find out about the envelope ’e left me, that’s all. ’Course, finally, me mum persuades me to go to ’em anyway, see. I din’t hand meself in, but I went an’ tole the police, an’ that’s where me troubles started.”

“What’s in the envelope?” Susan asked innocently.

“Nuffin, now,” Cabin replied. “I din’t dare open it for ages ’cause I was so shocked at ’im dyin’, an’ that. But when I finally plucked up the courage… I was ’opin’ for some kinda bonus, but all there was was this photo of ’im and this other geeza, throwin’ money around in some kind of vault.”

“What?” Susan almost jumped out of her seat. “Who was the other guy?”

“Difficult to tell,” Cabin replied sadly, “but I reckon it was this Arbuthnot guy – Mr O’s mate from way back. I couldn’t work out why he’d left me something like that, though. An’ then,” he continued, oblivious to Susan’s sudden interest in his story, “I tell Fil about it, an’ next thing I know, he’s askin’ if he can have it. Well, of course, I said no. It’s bin left to me, so why should Fil take it? I felt sure Mr O would’ve left Fil something, too – very fair, he was,” he added, misty-eyed. “Very fair. But you know what – one day I get back from doin’ the shoppin’ – I was stayin’ at me mum’s at this point, you know, couldn’t face goin’ back to live in the flat on the estate – and it’s gone. Turns out Fil had turned up, an’ talked me mum into givin’ him the photo! God only knows what he wanted with it, why it was so blinkin’ urgent that he had it. Anyway, I ’ad a right go at me mum, as you can imagine, called ’er every name under the sun. I didn’t hit her, mind,” he continued, “of course I din’t, but it was a bit of a blow, I can tell you, cos I held Mr O in high regard, and I respected him a lot. He was a great man. I jumped in the Rolls I’d borrowed from ’is garage – I tell you, they ain’t ’alf a bugger to fill up, cost me damn near a hundred quid just to get into town – and went over to Fil’s flat to try to talk ’im into givin’ me back the photo, but ’e wasn’t there. I ’ad to force the door a bit, but to be honest we used to do that quite a lot – we worked closely with each other, see, an’ I ’ad to get in his flat sometimes when I din’t ’ave a key. Then tonight, they find him – they find ’im –” He stopped, and blew his nose on the handkerchief again, seemingly unable to carry on. “They find ’im dead, in the middle of the maze,” he said finally, in a despondent whisper. “An’ the next fing I know, I’m being rounded up and bein’ brung ’ere. They tell me I’m under suspicion of ’is death, just ’cos I knew ’im. I’d never ’ave killed him, never!” He broke down, sobbing into the handkerchief. Susan reached forward and patted him on the arm.

“Don’t worry,” she said soothingly. “If you’ve got nothing to do with it, you’re fine – they can’t convict you of anything if there’s no evidence.”

Just then, Paul burst out of the interview room, in a foul mood. “They’re telling me they think we had something to do with Damien’s death,” he said. “What did you tell them?”

“The truth,” Susan said truthfully. “We’ve got nothing to hide. Xavier said exactly the same, as far as I know.”

Paul looked at Xavier, who had nodded off. “They’ve said we can go, for now,” he said. “But they’ve got more they want to ask us tomorrow. Are you busy?”

“Well, I’ve got some reading I need to do,” said Susan. “But look, I need to tell you something.”

And she led Paul into the yard outside the door of the police station, and told him what she’d just heard.

Day Twenty-Four: 1,873 words

“You could have warned us,” yelled Susan above the screaming noise coming from the van’s engine, “that Arbuthnot was a bloody gun-wielding psychopath.”

“How was I to know?” Xavier shouted back. “That’s not his style – usually he gets other people to do his dirty work for him.”

“I didn’t come here,” Susan bellowed, “to get shot at. I don’t go anywhere to get shot at, actually.”

“Is he following us?” Paul yelled, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

“I can’t see any lights…” Susan craned forward to see out of the wing mirror. “I think that’s a motorbike behind us. Where are we going?”

“Where else can we go?” Paul roared. “Opocapopopoulos House. There might at least be people there, so he’d think twice about shooting at us.”

“I don’t think he’ll follow us anywhere,” Xavier said, a bit more quietly. He was clearly shaken. “He almost certainly didn’t mean to – to kill Damien. I think the lights and the noise must have taken him by surprise. He isn’t the sort to usually use guns.”

“Well, neither am I, which means I don’t,” Paul said bluntly. “I wouldn’t even know where to get hold of one. What the hell must be in that photo for him to be so worried about it?”

“And what’s happened to Thimble? How come he found out about Thimble sticking the photo in there?” Susan wondered out loud.

“I dread to think,” Xavier said. “I’ve only heard about Thimble from the paper and what you’ve told me about your exploits in the maze, and he seems like he’s been trapped between a rock and a hard place.”

“Do you think that Damien would have told Arbuthnot where the cabinets are?” Susan said suddenly.

“It’s possible,” Xavier said. “I had always thought that Damien was the soul of discretion, but it seems that Arbuthnot must have –”

“He saved us,” Paul shot back. “He actually just died for us, even if he didn’t mean to. Whatever he told that crazy bastard back there, he must have felt extremely guilty for it.”

Susan, looking in the wing mirror at the road behind, said, “Whatever it is, that light seems to be gaining on us.”

Paul glanced in the mirror. “I can’t see anything.”

“It must be over my side –” Susan began. “Shit. It’s Arbuthnot. I think we must have broken one of his headlights. How fast are we going?”

Paul looked at the speedometer. “Fifty miles an hour,” he said. “It’s limited, I think.”

“So it’s a safe bet that he can go faster than we can,” Susan said slowly.

“He’s driving a turbocharged BMW six-series with a 4.7-litre engine,” Paul said slowly for Susan’s benefit; he knew she didn’t know a thing about cars, whereas he made a point of watching Top Gear every Sunday. “The only reason he’s not overtaking us is because the road’s too narrow and twisty. Otherwise, we’d be fucked.”

“It widens when you get inside the grounds,” Susan pointed out. “The driveway’s easily wide enough to fit two cars down.”

“Fine, then,” Paul snapped. “If you’ve got a better suggestion –”

Susan was silent for a few moments, then had an idea. She began unbuckling her seatbelt.

“What are you doing?” Paul asked. “This isn’t one of your stupid ideas, is it? Because now probably isn’t the time to have one.”

“I won’t know if it’s stupid,” Susan said resolutely, “until I try it. Try to drive as smoothly as you can.”

“Where are you going?”

Susan twisted round in her seat until she was kneeling on it facing backwards. “Help me over here,” she said to Xavier, who supported one of her shins as she clambered into the back of the van; there wasn’t much space between the top of the seats and the roof, so she ended up having to do a sort of handstand. “What does a car jack look like?” she asked, straightening up.

“There are lots of types –” Xavier began. She waved a metal object in his face. “Is this one?”

“Yes.”

“Will we need it?”

“I think there was a clause in the contract about –”

“Well,” Susan interrupted, “tough shit.” She rooted around the back of the van – it was mostly empty, but there were a few odds and ends in it – until she found a couple of long strap things that the hire company had left in there to enable people to lash large items to the side of the van. Wrapping one of them around her waist, looping it through one of the metal struts near the rear doors and buckling it loosely, she took the car jack firmly in one hand and held onto the door with the other.

“Right,” she called. “Can you see him?”

Paul checked. “Yeah, he’s still right behind us,” he confirmed. “What are you –”

In one swift movement, Susan opened one of the back doors, and heaved the jack straight at Arbuthnot’s windscreen. It hit slightly off-centre, instantly turning the glass to a crazed, opaque mosaic of shards, and causing Arbuthnot to brake sharply. The rear wheels skidded a little, but the car came quickly to a halt as Susan slammed the door shut again, ducked, and shouted, “Keep down!” just as another bullet punched through the upper half of the door and exited via the van’s roof.

“We are going to have so much trouble getting the deposit back,” Paul shouted, as Susan unbuckled herself and tottered towards the front seats against the bucking motion of the van, as they rounded the corner at the bottom of the drive leading up to Opocapopopoulos House.

“What do we do about the guard?” Susan reminded Paul. “We can’t really stop and sweet-talk him this time, I doubt that will stop Arbuthnot for very long.”

“I’m going to chance it,” Paul replied, “and drive through. I think the gate’s open, look.”

He was right: the lone guard stood silhouetted between the gateposts, hands behind his back, looking bored and slouched. As the van drove towards him he noticed it and held out his hand, but once he could see it showed no signs of slowing down he ran to the guard’s hut. He had obviously pressed something, because the gates started to close; Paul revved the engine and changed down a gear as the van screamed up the hill.

“We’re not gonna make it –” Susan yelped, somewhat uncharacteristically for her.

But they reached the gates just in time: Paul aimed right for the middle of the gap, there was a screech of grinding metal as the heavy gates tore silver gashes down both sides of the van, and then they were through, with the closing gates receding into the darkness behind them.

“You know what,” Paul said, “I don’t give a shit about getting the deposit back now.”

“Head for the maze,” Susan suggested. “I doubt Arbuthnot will know his way through.”

Paul steered the now rather crippled van across the lawn, up an ornamental slope and round the orangery, stopping just short of the box hedge next to the maze. He turned the engine off, and all was silent.

“Now,” Susan said. “We’re a bit better prepared this time, I hope.”

They looked at each other.

“Well,” she tried, “at least Paul and I have been through the maze once. Between us I think we’ll be able to find our way around it again, and if we can’t there’s always the map on Paul’s phone.”

“And then what?” Xavier asked, somewhat wearily. “Don’t forget, Arbuthnot has been here quite a few times before. He knows the house very well, you won’t be able to escape from him if you try and hide in there.”

“Yes, but does he know the cellars as well as you do?”

“I’ve only been in them once,” Xavier reminded her, “and I was ten. I have no idea if he knows the cellars; it is probable. At the very least, his associates do… Kel and the others.”

“Well, it’s our only chance, I think,” Susan said. “Paul, what do you think?”

“I haven’t got the faintest idea what I’m doing here,” Paul replied, sounding suddenly tired. “What any of us are, in fact. I’ve gone from… from elatedly thinking we might get a reward which would pay my rent until I can get another job, to being shot at in a car park by a maniac. And now, for the second time in two nights, we’re contemplating navigating the world’s third largest hedge maze in pitch darkness, to end up – if we’re lucky – in a dungeon which has so far killed at least two people. Meanwhile, the police will be dusting Damien for fingerprints or evidence or whatever, and coming to find us – and if this van is anywhere near the maze, in they’ll go. With bulldozers, if they have to.”

The other two were silent for a few moments while they digested this. Paul was right: on the surface, at least, the odds didn’t look good.

“In that case,” Susan said, “we’ve got to get rid of the van.”

“Are you nuts?” Paul said forcefully. “A: where? And B: why? We’ll not only never get our deposit back, we’ll probably be arrested. Again.”

“We can explain later,” Susan protested. “We don’t have any time to lose – you’re right, the police will be showing up any minute now. We’ve got to get rid of the evidence.”

“Whatever,” Paul sighed irritably. “Where, then?”

Five minutes later, the van was primed and ready to go. Paul had found an ornamental stone plant pot that wasn’t too heavy to lift, had started the engine, and was crouched in the driver’s side with the door open.

“Ready?”

“Go for it,” Susan answered.

He plonked the plant pot on the accelerator, at the same time as he shifted the van into third gear and jumped backwards out of the way. The van jolted forwards, picking up speed as it headed for the moat, hit the lip of stone surrounding it, and launched itself briefly, its back wheels spinning on nothing in slow motion, into the air.

Then it hit the moat with a splash, bounced off the bottom, and socked into the wall on the far side, coming to rest next to the house with steam and smoke pouring from its shattered engine.

Paul doubled over, clenching his fists in his mouth, and screamed silent curses at the sky. He took a few moments to regain his composure enough to be able to speak, but finally took a deep breath and said, “I don’t have swearwords violent enough for this.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” Susan remarked, breathing heavily as the adrenalin started to subside. “Come on. The sooner we’re in that maze, the better.”

She turned her back on the sorry wreck of the van, and headed for the maze the other side of the box hedge, followed by Xavier. Paul looked around for something he could take his anger out on by throwing it hard at something else, but couldn’t see anything, and so after some silent cursing under his breath stamped off in the same direction as the others.

Day Twenty-Three: 1,336 words

The Jarrold Collection (“where art comes to life and life comes to the gift shop”) was based in the neighbouring town of Sprean, in the grounds of the former home of Charles Jarrold, who had made a fortune in the 1800s as an importer of textiles. The illegitimate ninth son of a strumpet and a ne’er-do-well, he had started his business in the grounds of the village church, much to the chagrin of the local vicar, who quoted John 2:16 at him: “To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn my father’s house into a market!’” In response, Jarrold had quoted Charles 1:22 at the vicar, which basically went: “Fuck off, mate.” He had progressed rapidly and ruthlessly up the textile ladder, acquiring a large collection of interesting artifacts and finally building a modestly large house overlooking the river in a field he’d bought from a local farmer, but at the age of 52 had experienced his Road to Damascus moment: a small child holding a teddy bear, standing in the street and crying its eyes out because of its lack of exposure to ancient Etruscan pottery. From that moment on, Jarrold had resolved never to keep his enormously valuable collection to himself ever again, and had thrown open the doors to his estate so that anyone who wanted to and who had a spare two shillings could experience it at first hand. It was a roaring success, and he eventually sold his textile business so he could concentrate on hanging around auction rooms looking shifty, a skill which he found he was very good at, and buying more stuff to add to it. The collection grew and outgrew the house, and was moved in the 1930s into a purpose-built museum in the grounds designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, being swiftly moved back inside again – and underground – at the start of the Second World War. It now occupied an enlarged version of the original building, sold pencils, notepads, postcards, snow globes, coffee-table books, packs of cards, posters, plastic puzzles and other themed merchandise at vastly inflated prices from its gift shop, and Jarrold’s house had become a hotel run by some people in Surrey who most of the time forgot they owned it, which suited the Collection just fine.

It was getting late, and as the van pulled up in the car park Susan began to think they’d have to come back tomorrow, as the gift shop was closed and the car park was all but deserted. The only other vehicle in it – a dark silver BMW – must belong, she assumed, to the museum’s director or somebody equally important. Damien, who had had some business to attend to, had said he would follow them a few minutes behind, as the Transit van only had three seats in it, but he’d phoned ahead and the chief curator, Esther Crumplesnatchskin, had immediately agreed to meet them for a short time before she left for the day.

All was quiet: the crunch of Susan’s trainers on the gravel seemed disproportionately loud as she stepped down from the van. The other two followed her over to the visitor entrance, which looked very firmly locked. She tried opening it in case it wasn’t, but only succeeded in setting off a distant and not very loud alarm.

“Security hasn’t improved, then,” Paul commented. “Did you get this woman’s number?”

“No, Damien said he would phone ahead,” Susan replied, slightly puzzled. “He said he wouldn’t be long, anyway.”

Xavier, closer to the van than the other two, said, “Hmm. I don’t like this. Did either of you hear Pamela’s voice when he was speaking to her?”

They thought about this. “No – I don’t think I did, now you come to mention it,” Susan said. “You don’t think he’s up to something, do you? You said yourself he was trustworthy.”

“I’ve known Damien for years,” Xavier stated. “I know that you can never trust anybody, but inasmuch as you can trust anybody, he’s somebody I would trust. Up to a point.”

“That’s reassuring,” Susan said, and was just walking back in the direction of the van when a voice – a clear, level, clipped voice – said, “Good evening.”

They turned, to see someone emerging from the shadow of the BMW holding a gun. A short man. One of the two men Susan had seen in Trent’s office.

Algernon Arbuthnot.

“Arbuthnot,” Xavier snarled. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Protecting number one, Jameson minor,” Arbuthnot snapped. “I want that photograph, Susan.”

“What photograph?” Susan said. On the outside she seemed calm – inquisitive, even, as if Arbuthnot were holding a banana instead of a firearm – but her insides had turned to terrified sheets of ice. The only thought she had at that precise moment was keep him talking.

“The one you seem to have inherited,” Arbuthnot shot back. “Or have you not followed the instructions?”

A picture flashed into Susan’s mind of the piece of paper which said DESTROY ME. “I – I don’t understand what you mean,” she said. “I inherited a pair of cabinets. But –”

“We all know about the cabinets,” Arbuthnot said. He had moved towards them, still pointing the gun directly at Susan, but not near enough so that any of them could have run around the back of him and wrestled the gun from his grasp. “You appear to have discovered their provenance from my friend Mr Casablanca, which I had hoped you would eventually. But it seems that Thimble has thrown a spanner in the works.”

“Is that so?” Susan replied, not having a clue whether it was so or not. “And how did you find that out?”

“I have my ways. I don’t care about the cabinets, Susan, but I want that photograph.”

“Well, tough,” Susan said, with a bravado she didn’t feel. “It’s locked away, covered from every angle by CCTV cameras, and there’s a code on the door. You won’t break in, and we’re not going to let you in.”

“You matter to me,” Arbuthnot said, sifting through every syllable like a baleen whale filtering seawater for krill, “far less than the discovery of that photograph would. May I remind you: I have a gun.”

All of a sudden, there was a screech of tyres, and Susan turned for a split second to see headlights heading straight for them. “Move!” she shouted. Xavier flattened himself against the wall of the transit van, Paul scrabbled for the keys, and Susan dived to one side as Arbuthnot turned, half-blinded, and fired two shots at the oncoming car, before staggering out of its way at the last minute. Paul managed to stuff the right key in the lock, wrench the door open and leap up into the cab, closely followed by Xavier, in the same instant that Susan saw who the driver of the car was: Damien Casablanca, who screamed in slow motion as blood pumped from the hole in his forehead, and was unable to stop his car hurtling at full speed into the glass wall of the gift shop. The back wheels lifted a full two feet into the air with the force of the impact, and an avalanche of pens, erasers, teddy bears in branded boob tubes, keyrings, pottery kits and T-shirts wrapped in plastic bags cascaded down over the bonnet of his car. Susan was too shocked to move for over half a second, but then she felt Xavier’s bony hands grab her shoulders and yank her into the cab as Paul crammed the accelerator to the floor, spinning the wheels and spraying pebbles everywhere like bullets. Susan’s open door flew wide open as he screeched the van tightly to the right, hit Arbuthnot’s car, breaking one of the headlights, and earned a bullet-hole in the van’s back door. And then they were off, straight out into the road – luckily it wasn’t a busy one – and, ignoring the speed cameras, heading out of town at top speed.

Day Twenty-Two: 1,398 words

Meanwhile, in another part of town, an unremarkable front door to an unremarkable flat suddenly opened, startling the flat’s only occupant, who dropped his cup of tea in alarm.

“Who – who’s there?”

In response, a masked, hooded figure strode through the door, tucking a piece of bent coathanger which it had used to open the door into its pocket. It reached into its other pocket, withdrew a handful of postcards, sorted through them until it found the one it was looking for, and held it up for the man to read. He did so, rather timidly.

“‘Thank you for the note’,” he read. “I – I din’t send you a note –”

The hooded figure sorted through the cards again, and held up another one. “‘Yes, you did.’ Er – look, mate, I’m telling you I din’t.”

The figure jabbed the card in the air again in front of the other man’s face, and then found another.

“‘We know it was you because of your handwriting’? But it was typed – oh shit –”

Another card. “‘Ha! Busted.’ What the hell is this, some kind o’joke?”

The hooded figure paused menacingly, and found a final card. “‘Watch your back’,” the man read. “Mate,” he said, with a bravado he didn’t feel, “bugger off outta my gaff, now. Or I’m callin’ the police.”

The creature raised its head in what would presumably have been a contemptuous sneer, if it had had a visible mouth to sneer with. Then it tucked the cards back into its pocket, turned on its heel, and marched back out of the flat, closing the softly behind it as it left.

*

Damien Casablanca, a tall, thin man with a cadaverous face and a three-piece suit with a gold watch chain hanging from its breast pocket, stood in the doorway to the small metal room, gazing at Susan’s inherited Napoleon III cabinets with a gleam in his eye. “Well, well,” he said thoughtfully, “these are a find.”

He moved into the room and slowly around the cabinets, examining them minutely from every angle, just as Xavier had done. Susan, Paul and Xavier stood in the doorway: Paul to block his escape, Susan to make sure he didn’t damage them for any reason, and Xavier – well, who knew what could be going on in his mind. Susan certainly didn’t, despite his reassurances.

Finally, Damien straightened up. “Well, the good news is,” he announced, “they’re not fake.”

“Well, that is a relief,” Paul said. “How much?”

“There is some bad news too, unfortunately,” Damien continued, ignoring Paul. “I’m afraid they are not rightfully yours, Susan. These belong in a museum. The Jarrold Collection, to be exact.”

“What – what do you mean?” Susan asked, although she unwillingly had to admit to herself that she probably knew the answer.

“They were stolen from the Collection eighteen years ago,” Damien continued half an hour later, in his cramped office; he was standing behind his desk, reaching for some files, and the other three were squashed onto a sort of antique chaise longue obviously not designed for the purpose. He opened a box file labelled STOLEN ITEMS, and extracted from it a sheaf of papers in a cardboard sleeve. “They are quite a find simply because nobody ever thought they’d be seen again; I am intrigued as to how they ended up in your possession, although of course I am not suggesting,” he added, seeing Susan’s expression, “that you were involved in the theft.”

“I’d have been a precocious eight-year-old,” Susan pointed out. Damien smiled a thin-lipped smile.

“Quite,” he replied, and passed them some papers taken from the cardboard sleeve. “You say you inherited them from Bartholomew Opocapopopoulos.”

“Yes.”

“I probably would have hesitated to draw this conclusion while he was alive,” Damien said hesitantly, “but it would appear that he either stole them, or caused them to be stolen. The top sheet there is a photocopy of the original newspaper article that reported the theft, from the Eastwestchester Jester.”

They looked at it. The headline was: ‘Jarrold Collection Break-In: Priceless Cabinets Stolen’, and the article continued:

The Jarrold Collection was in disarray last night after it emerged that one of its most prized objects, a pair of Napoleon III ormolu-mounted tortoiseshell pietra dure side cabinets, had been stolen over the weekend. The cabinets, which date from the third Napoleonic era and are worth over £250,000, were last seen by Pollux Gnomon, the Collection’s head of security, on Saturday evening as he was conducting routine checks. The thieves appear to have broken in via a ground-floor window, which set off multiple alarm systems, but by the time the police arrived half an hour later the cabinets had been taken. A spokesman for the Collection said that they were “devastated”, adding, “Utterly devastated”. Police are trying to establish a motive for the crime other than money, but have so far drawn a blank.

“Oh,” said Susan. She re-read the article. “Do you think Bartholomew would have had anything to do with this?” she asked Xavier.

“It’s possible,” Xavier admitted. “I wouldn’t put it past him, anyway. This sounds suspiciously like it could have been one of his and Arbuthnot’s pranks.”

“Well, whether it was a prank or not,” Damien said, “the fact is that it is stolen. There was a reward offered at the time for their return –”

“Really?” Paul said, looking interested. “From the Collection, you mean?”

“Yes. I am not sure if it still stands, but it’s worth asking them. You won’t be culpable if you hand them over.”

“Fine, then,” Susan said decisively. “There was another thing, though.” She told him about the note she and Paul had found in the drawer, and he let out a brief, forced laugh.

“Destroy these? What a ludicrous idea. Why would you want to do that? They’re not even yours.”

“I don’t really want to. But I can’t help wondering why someone would have put the note in there like that.”

“Insanity, perhaps? A sadistic streak? These are priceless, Susan. When they were stolen they were one of only two surviving such examples in the world. They are now the only ones left, the others having been lost in a shipping accident in 1993. The Jester there calls them priceless, but puts a price tag on them; these days, they literally are priceless. Destroying them would not only be a crime against art history and the Napoleonic era in general, it would also be a horrible waste of a beautiful and irreplaceable pair of objets d’art.”

He sat down, exhausted.

“I am still a bit puzzled, though,” Susan persisted. “I can’t work out why Bartholomew would have left them to me, when he doesn’t appear to have left anybody else anything. I also can’t understand why he would have left a note in them like that. I mean, if he stole them or knew they were stolen, and if he was worried that he’d get exposed as an art thief after his death, why not destroy them himself? Why give me the responsibility?”

Damien spread his hands wide. “Who knows?” he asked rhetorically. “He took delight in being a difficult character to work out while he was alive; why should that change after death?”

Susan sighed, and was silent for a few moments while she weighed up her options. “I think I’ve got two options,” she decided finally. “I can’t keep them, and I can’t sell them, so I have to either destroy them, or give them back. I don’t really want to destroy them, but I’m still intrigued by that note, and who could have left it.” She suddenly had an idea. “Do you know if the Collection has a, I don’t know, some kind of workshop or something?”

“Yes, I believe they do. Why?”

“Well, look at it logically. Even a total philistine wouldn’t want something that valuable to be destroyed, assuming they knew what it was worth, without a very good reason. So I’m guessing that there’s something hidden in the cabinets somewhere – something that whoever left me the note was really desperate for me to find. So, if I give it back to the Collection under the condition that they examine them for anything that’s hidden inside, and give whatever it is to me quietly without making a fuss, then everybody’s happy.” She looked at the others. “Aren’t they?”

There was a pause while everyone considered this.

“Sounds like a plan,” Paul admitted. “Do we still get the reward?”

Day Twenty-One: 1,584 words

They arrived back at Susan’s flat to find Paul, in his pants and with hair like Don King, trying to warm a cup of tea in the microwave. “For God’s sake, Paul,” Susan said irritably, “put some clothes on, Xavier’s here.”

Xavier wandered into Susan’s pokey little lounge, and looked at the cabinets thoughtfully. “I see what you mean,” he said, stroking his little goatee beard. “Have you examined these thoroughly? I see they’re visible from the road, too,” he added. “Perhaps you should move them.”

“Where to?” Susan replied. “My bedroom’s hardly big enough to fit my bed in it, let alone these monsters.”

Xavier walked round them – or at least, squeezed and stumbled his way round, falling over Susan’s sofa and almost knocking her TV off the small table on which it stood precariously, balanced amongst piles of books. He looked at them from every angle, squatting down and shining a small torch underneath them, opening all the drawers, and examining the surface with a magnifying glass, as if he was trying to find traces of explosives on them. Finally, he straightened up. “Have you had these valued?” he asked. “I’m no expert, but they do seem to be genuine.”

“No. I found a similar pair on eBay though, going for about thirty grand.”

“Are they insured?”

Susan sighed. “No, nothing in here is. I can’t afford it.”

“The moment,” Xavier said sharply, “that the wrong people find out that these are here, your flat will get turned over. Do you understand? They won’t last more than an hour.”

“Yes, I know the risks, thank you,” Susan retorted. “That’s partly why I haven’t had them valued, though. I’m not sure I really want anyone to know about them.”

“I know of somebody in town who would do it. He’s very discreet, his name’s Damien Casablanca. He is not in any way connected to organised crime, battering-rams, Rottweilers or men with tattooed necks. We must find out where they came from, I’m serious about this. And I don’t want you to be at risk because they’re here. In fact, insurance alone wouldn’t really compensate if they were stolen – you need them somewhere secure…” He stopped and snapped his fingers together. “Can we put them into a storage unit? We can rent them fairly cheaply, I think. I’m even willing to go halves on this with you, if that makes it an easier decision.”

Susan stood there, unwillingly mulling over the options. It was almost certainly true that she wouldn’t be able to keep the cabinets in the long term, and probably a good idea if she didn’t have them in the flat in the short term, either. But why was Xavier so interested in them all of a sudden – and apparently cared enough about her that he’d offer his own money to help her out? Did he want some of the proceeds from the cabinets when they finally got around to selling them?

“Xavier,” she asked, “do you want some of the proceeds from these cabinets when we sell them?”

“No, actually I don’t,” Xavier replied. “I’m interested in them because I’m interested in Barty. I don’t know where they came from, and why his will appears to have been so short, and not made public. I don’t know why the note was in the drawer, and who put it there. I am worried, though, that in the time we take to find some answers to these questions, your flat will have been turned over unless we can put them somewhere safe.”

“In that case, I think you’re right,” Susan agreed. “Let’s see if we can get them up to a storage room somewhere. We’ll need a van. Paul,” she called, “you can drive a van, can’t you?”

“You know I can,” Paul called back. “Hiring one might be quite useful, anyway. My car’s still off the road and I need to do some shopping.”

And so it was that a few hours later, the three of them sat in the front of a Transit van, with the cabinets in the back – carefully repackaged, and braced on all sides with random bits of furniture to stop them sliding about – while Paul drove them through a wet town centre towards the Big Lemon storage depot in a trading estate on the outskirts of town. When they got there, Xavier’s somewhat vampiric appearance caused a few sidelong glances, but pretty soon they were guiding a pallet trolley with the huge, heavy packing-crate on it down a narrow corridor flanked with yellow metal doors, finding the one they’d hired, wheeling the crate in, and then locking it up with the lock they’d had to buy (cost: £12.99).

Xavier handed Susan one of the sets of keys, and kept the other. “Now,” he said, “would you like me to call Damien? He can come and value the cabinets here. The place is riddled with cameras and you need a code to get in, so even if he were dishonest – which, as I’ve said, he’s not – there isn’t much he could do about stealing them.”

“I’m happy for him to do that,” Susan said. “Paul?”

“Don’t look at me,” Paul said, “they’re not mine anyway. If you’re happy, though, I’m happy.”

“Fine,” Susan said, and handed Xavier her phone as they left the building. “Do you want to call him now, see if he can maybe do tomorrow?”

*

Meredith had moved her investigation on to the outside of the house. Her team hadn’t found anything much inside apart from some strands of hair, a load of fingerprints, and a few small specks of blood in one of the corridors, so while they were sending those away to get analysed she decided it would be a good time to explore the grounds. The actual location that Opocapopopoulos had been found, of course, had already been examined, but had yielded nothing much apart from the same observation made by Dodecahedrus Grunt: that wherever he had died, it hadn’t been where he was discovered.

She was at one side of the house, standing at the edge of the moat. She wanted to examine the outside walls of the building, but the moat was about twenty-five feet wide, and there was no ledge between it and the house, so she couldn’t go over the drawbridge and then edge round. The house’s exterior walls just plunged straight into the moat and went straight down, disappearing into the algae.

She consulted her plans to see if they showed how deep the moat was, but couldn’t find any indication of depth labelled anywhere. A frown creased her brows, and she briefly considered calling in a diving team, but dismissed the idea: either it was possible to get into the house over the moat, or it wasn’t, and if she couldn’t do it – in broad daylight with a variety of scissor-lifts, cherry-pickers and Simon hoists at her disposal – then it was fairly safe to assume that anyone trying to get into the building couldn’t, either. That was, it seemed, the whole point of having a moat there in the first place.

She carried on walking along the straight section of moat until she reached the end, where it took a ninety-degree turn to the left and carried on for maybe a hundred feet before going underneath the rear drawbridge. The walls here, too, were sheer, with no ledge, and she was just running her eyes over them, studying how it might be possible to even get across the moat, let alone scale them, when she noticed something that looked out of place. One of the window ledges on the ground floor – roughly eight feet above the surface of the moat – had a chunk taken out of it, which looked rather like it had been made with a pickaxe or some other sharp instrument. The area of stone revealed when the chunk had broken off looked brand new compared to the slightly more weathered appearance of the rest of the ledge, and this was a bit odd: there were other parts of the building which had been damaged, of course, but the only one they’d found so far that hadn’t been repaired was the observatory on the east roof, and that had definitely happened after Opocapopopoulos’s death, during a freak meteorite shower three weeks ago. So this, logically, had happened either after the death, or just before.

She was just pondering what this might mean when a heron swooped down low over the water, stretched its legs out in mid air, and landed in the moat. In the moat. The water reached just over its knees.

Meredith literally slapped her forehead in disbelief. How come nobody had realised that before? The moat wasn’t built to stop hordes of invading armies; it was just for show, like so many other things in Opocapopopoulos’s life. The broken window ledge suddenly made sense, and she found herself speedily jumping to conclusions, constructing possible explanations in her head: an intruder had waded across the moat, thrown some kind of grappling hook onto the window ledge, and broken a bit of it off. Or they’d thrown the hook, climbed up it, left it there, and broken the ledge on the way back down.

She stopped. Come to think of it, those were actually the only two explanations that made any sense.

She reached for the walkie-talkie in her pocket, and arranged for someone to come and take some photos and measurements.

Day Twenty: 1,552 words

“Well,” Susan began, “I think you asked Jill about the will? Whether it had been sorted out and so on.”

“I was interested,” Xavier replied, “purely out of academic interest, of course.”

“I got a phone call last week,” Susan pressed on, “from someone called Trent Napkin. He said he was representing the – sorry, can I just get rid of this cat?” She scooped the cat up from her lap with both hands held out flat like shovels, which took it by surprise, and so she was able to dump it on the floor before it could dig its claws in. It looked at her hatefully, turned away with a superior flick of its tail and padded out of the room. “Sorry, my legs have gone totally dead. Ow,” she winced, stretching them.

“Don’t mind Mephisto,” Xavier said, “he means no harm.”

“No, I’m sure he doesn’t.” Susan rubbed her legs, and carried on. “Where was I? Oh yes – this guy Trent Napkin. He called me to his offices, read the will, and I seem to have inherited a pair of rather valuable Napoleon III side cabinets.”

“Really,” Xavier mused. “How was the will read?”

“Well, he kind of got the three of us in a room, and –”

“Only three of you?” Xavier was surprised. “Do you not think that a man as wealthy as Bartholomew would have a few more people to leave his money to? What did the others get?”

“I don’t remember,” Susan admitted. “I was so dazed I’d got anything, I wasn’t really paying much attention.”

“And who were they, do you remember that?”

“One was called Rankin, and the other –”

“Algernon Arbuthnot,” Xavier said softly.

“I think he was Arbuthnot, actually, yes. How did you know?”

“He’s turned up on the old radar many a time,” Xavier said. “I thought he’d be involved in this, somehow.”

“Who is he?”

Xavier got to his feet, crossed over to the writing-bureau again, pulled open a drawer and carefully extracted another dog-eared envelope, from which he slid a number of press cuttings held together with paper clips. “These,” he said, “are from the Eastwestchester Jester. Do you remember it?”

“Oh yeah,” Susan said, intrigued. “Vaguely. Didn’t it close down about twenty years ago after a fire?”

“Yes, it did. I think the Windsock’s headline was something like, ‘Rival Paper Reduced to Ashes Tragedy’, or something similarly sarcastic. Truth is, the Jester burnt down because of Arbuthnot. They’d always been less fearless than the Windsock, and more tenacious, in digging out the dirt on Bartholomew and his dealings. Arbuthnot, in answer to your question, was a business associate of Bartholomew’s; they met at the Bank, when Bartholomew was a junior.

“In those days, Bartholomew and I communicated quite regularly. He told me a fair bit about the dealings going on there – without ever revealing anything secret, of course; he was always the sole of discretion. Arbuthnot cropped up an increasing amount, as he was Bartholomew’s mentor, his boss if you like. He was the star trader, making the Bank tens of millions, and this was in the days when ten million pounds was worth a lot more than it is today. I clearly remember Barty, in one letter, admitting to me that he wanted to be as successful as Arbuthnot: he looked up to him in a way which I felt at the time wasn’t entirely healthy.

“Anyway, they became good friends. In the 1970s they were involved in a minor scandal which involved manipulating oil prices in the Middle East to make short-term gains in stock prices – ‘pump and dump’, I think they called it. These days they might get fired and that would be an end to their career, but in those days, before a lot of the big corporate scandals there have been lately, they escaped with a slap on the wrists. I believe this is what fuelled Barty’s lust for money, which is what I think drove him through the latter half of his life. I mean,” he leaned forward, fixing Susan with a penetrating gaze through his hooded eyes, “if you knew you could make almost unlimited sums of money in a slightly illegal way, and you wouldn’t suffer any of the consequences, wouldn’t you do it?”

“No, actually,” Susan said flatly. “I know it’s probably easy to say that because I haven’t got any, but money just doesn’t do anything for me.”

Xavier raised his eyebrows. “Well, for Barty this was an attractive proposition. The problem was, of course, that the deeper he got into what were effectively Arbuthnot’s shady deals, the harder it was for him to get out of them. At one point in the early 90s, just before Black Wednesday, he owned over thirty vintage cars, three helicopters, a racecourse and a chain of cinemas. He just couldn’t spend the money as fast as he was making it, you see.”

“What happened to the chain of cinemas?” Susan couldn’t help asking.

“Oh, he sold it to help patch up the holes when Black Wednesday hit,” Xavier said dismissively. “Didn’t patch them all up, of course, but it helped. Meanwhile, Arbuthnot had been hit a lot harder: he’d got into currency speculation. The rumour has it that a lot of the money George Soros made that day betting one way on the euro, came from the money that Arbuthnot lost betting on it the other way. He had to sell three of his houses – one in Monaco, one in Aspen, Colorado, and a Knightsbridge townhouse he’d just spent a vast sum renovating.

“The 1990s came and went, and they both recovered and went on trading, but Arbuthnot was bitter. He had begun to hate Barty for not helping him out when the schemes and scams he’d taught him for so many years came back to bite him on the arse – and I think there was also jealousy there, too, that Barty seemed to have emerged unscathed when Arbuthnot hadn’t. By this time, I was following their exploits in the papers – there’s an article in there from the Economist from 2001,” he indicated the envelope Susan was holding, “and features from the FT, the Sunday Times ‘Money’ section, and Smash Hits magazine.” He noticed her quizzical look. “They had a number 1 in 1998, with a remix of a Schleswig-Holsteinian drinking song. They were going through a phase of making each other increasingly outlandish bets: Barty bet Arbuthnot that he could buy a number 1 hit, and Algy took him on. And lost.”

Xavier sighed.

“On the outside, they seemed like inseperable cohorts, but the resentment that I mentioned just now was, I think, seething underneath the surface. You know when you’re playing around with a close friend, and you can insult them or sometimes even cause them inconvenience but you both know it’s fine? Well, Arbuthnot was constantly trying to trip Barty up, and it became quite nasty at times. At an awards ceremony a few years ago, he arranged for Barty’s acceptance speech to be swapped for one Hitler gave in Munich in 1941. Not at all amusing, and very embarrassing for Barty… he, however, took it as one long joke, despite the difficulties it caused him. They were their own worst enemies.”

The cat stalked back into the room again, caught Susan’s eye, and stared unwaveringly at her. She tried to take it on, but lost: it raised a supercilious eyebrow, turned away from her and flowed itself upwards onto the sofa Xavier was sitting on.

“So my guess,” Xavier summarised, “is that Arbuthnot was there to… hang on. You said there weren’t any others present.”

“I think there was an independent witness there. Miss D’arblay.”

Xavier frowned. “The name doesn’t ring a bell,” he mused. “But I’m almost certain that you have in some way been set up. Had Barty ever spoken to you?”

“No, hardly ever,” Susan admitted.

“As you can probably gather, he wasn’t the kind of person to make random gifts,” Xavier said, “except when he was in one of those moods, I suppose. There’s very little reason why he would have given you something which sounds quite valuable, and left nothing at all to, for example, me.”

“There’s – one other thing about the cabinets,” Susan said hesitantly. “We looked in one of the drawers, and found this note.”

She produced the piece of paper with DESTROY ME written on it. “It was in an envelope addressed to me,” she added, “so it can’t have been an accident. Why would –”

“Have you destroyed the cabinets?” Xavier asked quickly, taking the note from her and scrutinising it. “Please tell me you haven’t.”

“No. I’m a bit loath to, I have to admit. They are utterly hideous, but I can’t help feeling a museum might want them, even if I don’t.”

“That’s good. Does anyone else know about them?”

“Only Paul. And we – we mentioned them to a forensic scientist who’s involved with the work up at the house… Meredith, I think Paul said.”

“Right,” Xavier said, passing Susan back the piece of paper. “Where are the cabinets?”

“Back at my flat. In my front room. Stopping me from watching TV.”

“Then let me get a couple of things,” Xavier replied decisively, “and let’s go there.”