they were Ferdinand, Gervase, Alicia, Berenice, Vivien, Donald, Helen… I lost count.
‘Malcolm,’ Gervase said loudly, coming to a halt in front of us, so that we too had to stop. ‘You’re alive!’
A tiny flicker of humour appeared in Malcolm’s eyes at this most obvious of statements, but he had no chance of answering as the others set up a clamour of questions.
Vivien said, ‘I heard from the village that Quantum had blown up and you were both dead.’ Her strained voice held a complaint about having been given erroneous news.
‘So did I,’ Alicia said. ‘Three people telephoned… so I came at once, after I’d told Gervase and the others, of course.’ She looked deeply shocked, but then they all did, mirroring no doubt what they could see on my own face but also suffering from the double upset of misinformation.
‘Then when we all get here,’ Vivien said, ‘we find you aren’t dead.’ She sounded as if that too were wrong.
‘What did happen?’ Ferdinand asked. ‘Just look at Quantum.’
Berenice said, ‘Where were you both, then, when it exploded?’
‘We thought you were dead,’ Donald said, looking bewildered.
More figures pushed through the crowd, horror opening their mouths. Lucy, Edwin and Serena, running, stumbling, looking alternately from the wounded house to me and Malcolm.
Lucy was crying, ‘You’re alive, you’re alive!’ Tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Vivien said you were dead.’
‘I was told they were dead,’ Vivien said defensively. Dim-witted… Joyce’s judgement came back.
Serena was swaying, pale as pale. Ferdinand put an arm round her and hugged her. ‘It’s all right, girl, they’re not dead after all. The old house’s a bit knocked about, eh?’ He squeezed her affectionately.
‘I don’t feel well,’ she said faintly. ‘What happened?’
‘Too soon to say for certain,’ Gervase said assertively. ‘But I’d say one can’t rule out a bomb.’
They repudiated the word, shaking their heads, covering their ears. Bombs were for wars, for wicked schemes in aeroplanes, for busstations in far places, tor cold-hearted terrorists… for other people. Bombs weren’t for a family house outside a Berkshire village, a house surrounded by quiet green fields, lived in by an ordinary family.
Except that we weren’t an ordinary family. Ordinary families didn’t have fifth wives murdered while planting geraniums. I looked around at the familiar faces and couldn’t see on any of them either malice or dismay that Malcolm had escaped. They were all beginning to recover from the shock of the wrongly reported death and also beginning to realise how much damage had been done to the house.
Gervase grew angry. ‘Whoever did this shall pay for it!’ He sounded pompous more than effective.
‘Where’s Thomas?’ I asked.
Berenice shrugged waspishly. ‘Dear Thomas went out early on one of his useless job-hunting missions. I’ve no idea where he was going. Vivien telephoned after he’d left.’
Edwin said, ‘Is the house insured against bombs, Malcolm?’
Malcolm looked at him with dislike and didn’t answer.
Gervase said masterfully, ‘You’d better come home with me, Malcolm. Ursula will look after you.’
None of the others liked that. They all instantly made counterproposals. The superintendent, who had been listening with attentive eyes, said at this point that plans to take Malcolm home would have to be shelved for a few hours.
‘Oh, really?’ Gervase stared down his nose. ‘And who are you?’
‘Detective Superintendent Yale, sir.’
Gervase raised his eyebrows but didn’t back down. ‘Malcolm’s done nothing wrong.’
‘I want to talk to the superintendent myself,’ Malcolm said. ‘I want him to find out who tried to destroy my house.’
‘Surely it was an accident,’ Serena said, very upset.
Ferdinand still had his arm round her. ‘Face facts, girl.’ He hesitated, looking at me. ‘Vivien and Alicia told everyone you were both living here again… so how come you escaped being hurt?’
‘Yes,’ Berenice said. ‘That’s what I asked.’
‘We went to London for a night out and stayed there,’ I said.
‘Very lucky,’ Donald said heartily, and Helen, who stood at his elbow and hadn’t spoken so far at all, nodded a shade too enthusiastically and said, ‘Yes, yes.’
‘But if we’d been in the office,’ I said, ‘we would have been all right.’
They looked aiong the front of the house to the far corner where the office windows were broken but the walls still stood.
‘You wouldn’t be in the office at four-thirty in the morning,’ Alicia said crossly. ‘Why should you be?’
Malcolm was growing tired of them. Not one had hugged him, kissed him, or made warm gestures over his survival. Lucy’s tears, if they were genuine, had come nearest. The family obviously could have accommodated his death easily, murmuring