five-year-old child trying to steady herself in a vicious adult world that gave no quarter. It would be a challenge to go back to The High but perhaps that was something else it would be good for her to face. It was time she allowed herself to change.
Her mobile rang. For a moment she was confused since she thought she had turned it off, then she realised it was the private one, close family and friends only. Wiping away the tears from her face, she checked the caller display. It was her cousin Juliet.
‘Hi, Jules!’ She hoped she didn’t sound as hysterical as she felt.
‘Lizzie!’ For her part, Juliet sounded breathless or down the end of a distant and very crackly line, or possibly both. Lizzie felt warmth slide through her as she visualised her cousin; Jules would be wearing her old hiking boots and a battered waterproof coat, her hair would be in a messy blonde bun beneath an old velvet hat and she would be holding the mobile away from her ear as though it was some sort of alien object. Jules and her siblings had grown up on a farm surrounded by animals, two loving parents and lots of happiness. Her upbringing was about as far away from Lizzie’s as could be imagined. She was also a partner in a legal firm with chambers in Clerkenwell and was a razor-sharp lawyer.
‘We’ve only just got back to Arreau and heard that you were in trouble!’ Jules bellowed. ‘What the hell’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me? I looked at the Internet, well, as much as you can get it up here with no signal, and I saw the stories about that wife of Dudley’s and how he’s supposed to have murdered her and how you’re to blame. Absolute tosh! About you, I mean, not Dudley. He’s definitely a candidate for arrest, if you ask me! I’ve always said—’
‘How was the camping?’ Lizzie interrupted, anticipating a diatribe. Dudley and Juliet had never got on.
‘Yeah, great,’ Jules said, ‘except for the rain and the insects. The kids loved it. They want to go on to the Sierra Nevada now for a couple of weeks but I’ve said we’re coming home to see you. You need us.’
Lizzie felt a rush of affection. ‘That’s so kind,’ she said. ‘I’m really lucky to have such a great cousin.’
‘Well, we don’t have much family left,’ Jules said, ‘so we have to stick together. No word from your ghastly father, I suppose,’ she added. ‘Is he still living in California?’
‘As far as I know,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t want him popping up now,’ she added with feeling. ‘That really would be the last straw.’
‘Bastard,’ Jules said. ‘Anyway, we were talking about you. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing much,’ Lizzie said. ‘Things are dying down now. Don’t put off your holidays on my account, although aren’t the kids due back at school soon anyway?’
‘Probably,’ Jules sounded vague. She sighed. ‘Damn. They’ll send us to jail this time if Kit and Olivia take any more unapproved absence. That old buzzard of a headmistress insists they should get a full-time education.’
‘She has a point,’ Lizzie said drily. ‘And someone in your position should really be seen to uphold the law.’
‘But they learn so much when we’re travelling,’ Jules argued, revisiting a topic that the two of them had talked about a number of times. Lizzie, the product of boarding school, had appreciated the structure and discipline it had given her when her life was in shreds even though she had been miserable at first. Jules had argued that structure and discipline was death to the imagination.
‘Look,’ Jules said, ‘what I really rang for was to check if Bill has got the whole legal aspect of this case covered for you? He may be a leech but he’s always got good lawyers on retainer.’
‘I’d rather have you,’ Lizzie said involuntarily, ‘but yes, he has. They’re rather too aggressive for my liking. I mean, I haven’t done anything and paying a bunch of sharks makes me look guilty.’
‘You know I’d act for you if I could,’ Jules said, ‘but I could be legitimately accused of being prejudiced. Look, Lizzie, brace up. I’ll come back anyway, just in case I can help.’
‘That’s really sweet of you, Jules,’ Lizzie said, ‘but only if you’re sure. It would be good to see you, but like I said, it’s all dying down now. The police probably won’t want to interview me again. I mean, why