people came towards him from the direction of the cash desk, anxious for buses and home. An elderly woman, hurrying a little too fast, caught the heel of her shoe against a chair leg and almost fell to the floor, saving herself at the last moment by clutching at the trim waist of a very tall upright old man in front of her.
‘God bless my soul!’ the old man said in loud clear tones, feeling himself encircled for the first time in twenty-five years in a powerful feminine embrace. Tins and packets cascaded from the woman’s holdall, rattling and bouncing between the agitated feet of customers pressing towards the exit.
‘I’m ever so sorry,’ the woman said in a deeply humiliated voice. Viner bent down to pick up the groceries. A small cardboard drum had rolled under one of the tables so that he had to kneel and fish it out, murmuring apologies to the occupants of the table, who continued to consult their menus without paying the slightest attention to either himself or what they clearly considered an ill-bred little uproar.
I suppose I’d better be going, Alison thought, roused from her reverie by some minor commotion at the other side of the tearoom. She looked about, gathered up her things. Rain no longer blew against the window, the sky was beginning to clear. She wouldn’t bother taking a bus, she had time to walk.
As she came away from the cash desk she became aware of a tall young man getting up from his knees a couple of yards away, giving her a rueful grin. He was helping some old duck with her gear. He shepherded her to the door and then turned back into the café, looking over at Alison, almost as if he knew her.
She was faintly puzzled. Was he someone she ought to recognize? Some client from the agency – or from her days at Tyler’s perhaps? Then all at once she knew him. Good heavens! Colin Viner! After how many years?
She swung round to face him, laughing. ‘Colin!’ she said. ‘It is Colin Viner, isn’t it?’ It must be twelve or thirteen years since she’d last seen him. He’d been a couple of forms above her at Chaddesley Grammar School; she’d had to leave, had been transferred to the Barbourne school when her father had taken a post as art lecturer at the Barbourne College of Art. It was just herself and her father by then; her mother had died during an influenza epidemic three years before.
He was beside her now, smiling down at her, striving to recall her name. Just when he thought he’d have to confess he couldn’t remember it, his brain flung up the long-ago syllables.
‘Alison!’ he said in triumph. ‘Alison Lloyd!’ It came to him in the same moment that he hadn’t known her all that well, she was a couple of years younger than he was. And it came to him also that he hadn’t much liked her. But the reason for his dislike – that eluded him.
‘I’m not Alison Lloyd any more,’ she said. ‘I’m Alison Rolt. I got married a few years ago.’ She pulled a face. ‘Not a very good idea, it came unstuck.’
People began to push past them. ‘We’d better move,’ he said. He walked beside her to the door, came out and stood on the windy pavement.
‘What are you doing in Barbourne?’ she asked. ‘Do you live here now?’
‘I was transferred here a few weeks ago. I’m in the police. A detective sergeant, to be precise.’
She made a little grimace of affected awe. ‘Fancy!’ She scrutinized his face with a candour left over from the shared days of childhood. ‘You haven’t really changed all that much.’
‘Come and have a drink this evening,’ he suggested. Infinitely better than sitting alone in his lodgings. ‘Or dinner,’ he said. ‘We could have a good old gossip.’
She shook her head. ‘This evening’s no good. I have a committee meeting.’ She laughed. ‘It’s not really my style. I’ve been roped in to help with the Charities Fair. But I could make it another evening. Tomorrow – or Wednesday.’
‘Wednesday then,’ he said. ‘The Montrose Hotel? Seven-thirty?’
William Yoxall was the first member of the Charities Fair Committee to arrive at the Fords’ house. Robin Ford answered his ring at the door and ushered him into the dining room, where his parents were engaged in some last-minute rearrangement of the furniture.
‘It’s no good,’ Beryl Ford was saying sharply as Yoxall came in. ‘That trolley will have to go out, otherwise someone is going to have to sit on top of the sideboard.’ She gave Yoxall a distracted glance. ‘You here already? It’s not gone seven, surely?’
‘No,’ he said soothingly. ‘You’ve plenty of time. I’m on the early side.’
‘You can give me a hand with this then,’ Arthur Ford said. He jerked his head at the side table, laden now with china, cutlery, silverware. Plates of fancy biscuits, little cakes elaborately iced.
‘Certainly.’ Yoxall took one end of the table and heaved it back under Arthur’s directions into a more convenient position.
‘Always the same,’ Arthur said with philosophic joviality. ‘Beryl can never settle down to enjoy a social evening unless she’s made one hell of a domestic upset first.’
‘Another couple of chairs from the sitting room,’ Beryl said to Robin. ‘Those two straight chairs by the window.’ She darted an anxious glance into the mirror above the hearth, raised both hands and stabbed at her carefully constructed hairdo. She was wearing a tight-fitting dress of electric blue crepe festooned with pleated whorls and frills that did nothing for her bony figure.
‘That’s it then,’ Arthur said forcefully a few minutes later. ‘If you’re not satisfied now you never will be. Come on, Robin, we’ll make ourselves scarce before your mother has time to think up a fresh move.’
‘Come into the kitchen,’ Beryl said to Yoxall. ‘You can talk to me while I get on with one or two jobs. Oh – I was nearly forgetting,’ she added on a higher note. ‘You’ll never guess who Hazel Ratcliff has got to take over the Art stall.’ She flung William a look full of challenge. ‘Go on! See if you can tell me!’
‘I’ve no idea,’ William said mildly.
‘Mrs Rolt! There,’ she added as she saw his eyes blink open. ‘I knew you’d be surprised. She’s coming along this evening.’ She led the way into the kitchen. ‘We must have everything just so for her ladyship.’ She reached into a cupboard and took out a coffee percolator with important movements. ‘I’m not having her go away and say she found anything to criticize.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘I expect you think her very good-looking,’ Beryl said, almost accusatory.
‘She certainly has a striking appearance.’ His tone lacked enthusiasm. ‘I can’t say I greatly admire that type.’
‘My own opinion exactly,’ Beryl said with energy. ‘Altogether too exotic for my taste.’ She pulled down the corners of her mouth. ‘Her mother was a foreigner, I understand. A Greek, I believe.’
William nodded with a reflective air. Then he looked about him. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
She sent a harassed glance round the room. ‘No, not really.’ She banged things down on to a tray. ‘That wretched creature Yardley phoned again to ask if he could serve on the committee,’ she said suddenly. ‘He’s got a nerve! After the way I choked him off last time,
