he’d sent. ‘You disappeared from London before I could get hold of you.’
‘Hello, Bill,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m so glad you called. I wanted to ask you—’
‘Look, Lizzie, I’ve had The James Gordon Show on,’ Bill interrupted. ‘They want you for an interview tonight. It’s a special feature on public shaming; from golden girl to enemy of the people sort of thing. There’ll be you, and that politician who faked his expenses and was sent to jail, and a kid who was a chess champion until they worked out he’d been cheating—’
‘Bill.’ It was Lizzie’s turn to interrupt. ‘No. Just – no.’
‘I know it’s short notice,’ Bill continued, ‘and that you won’t be able to talk about the legal case since it’s ongoing, but you can drop a few hints, I’ll get the lawyers to brief you. ‘I’ll send a car if you tell me where you are. And the producers of Famous and Frozen have been in touch. You know, it’s the show where celebrities are abandoned in the Arctic for weeks with just a tent and a few tins of food. They thought the public might like to see you tackling something like that as a kind of punishment—’
‘Again,’ Lizzie said. ‘No. Thank you. But as you’re on the line, can I ask you why you let The High get so rundown when I was paying for a caretaker and a gardener?’
‘Where?’ Bill said. ‘Look, where are you?’
‘At The High,’ Lizzie said, ‘hence the question.’
‘Right,’ Bill said, ‘right.’ He sounded slightly more cautious now as though the penny had finally dropped. ‘You’re in Burford. Of course – that’s where you said you’d go. I didn’t really think you’d do it.’
‘Clearly not,’ Lizzie said warmly. ‘Whilst Jules helps me sort out this legal mess I’m going to be writing some music, just like I mentioned. Or I will be when I get the house cleaned and the garden cleared and the piano tuned and all the other stuff done that I was paying you to sort out.’
‘Look, Lizzie,’ Bill said, ‘there was no point throwing money away on that place. I… ah… I invested it for you instead. I’ll give Francis a call; ask him to send you the financial details…’
Bill, Lizzie thought, had never been so keen to involve her in discussions with her accountants before.
‘Please do call Francis,’ she said. ‘Tell him I’m moving my business to Carpenter’s. Oh, and Bill – you’re fired.’ She pressed the button to end the call. It felt good. She felt free.
Humming a few lines of music under her breath, she went into the library. The heating had not yet started to make an impression on the room. It felt cold and unwelcoming and the shelves were thick with dust. In her grandparents’ time the books had all been catalogued and sorted by topic like in a proper library system. Her grandfather had been a keen antiquarian collector with a particular interest in local history. Lizzie’s father had let all of that go; in fact, she thought he had probably only kept such an esoteric collection of books to give the impression that he was cultured. Plenty of the stacks had drinks stains and cigarette burns on them.
She found what was left of the history section. Roman Britain mingled on the shelves with the history of the Habsburg Empire and Fatimid Egypt. She searched in vain for something on the Tudor period, resolving to go down to the Burford library as soon as she could to find a book about Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. Then she saw a slim volume with a worn red leather cover and rough-cut pages. On the spine, in gold lettering it read: An Historical Account of Cumnor – with some particulars of the Death of the Countess of Leicester by Hugh Usher Tighe. The date at the bottom was 1821. Lizzie wrapped her grandfather’s big thick jumper more closely around her and settled down in the leather armchair to read.
Hugh Tighe, she quickly discovered, had been a huge fan of Sir Walter Scott. Scott had based his book Kenilworth on the story of Amy Robsart and this had heavily influenced Tighe who saw Amy as a tragic and ill-treated heroine, the victim of a ruthless and ambitious man. For all Lizzie knew this could well have been the case but she thought Amy sounded rather feeble. Whilst Robert Dudley was living it up at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, Amy pined away, neglected and alone