Lessons in Solving the Wrong Problem - Charlie Cochrane Page 0,8

of it being discovering slightly more about what their dear friend and colleague Dr Panesar got up to when he wasn’t in his laboratory risking half of Cambridge being blown to smithereens. Despite the fresh insights into his life, it had come as a huge surprise to find out that he was an aviator: he’d kept that quiet. Hidden and remarkable depths, had Dr P.

In the run up to their visit to the Byrds’s ancestral home, Roman villas and digs often featured in conversation at Forsythia cottage, Orlando clearly enjoying himself with his abstruse calculations. Two marvellous diagrams featuring the intricate workings of the hypocaust system, both provided by Kane, had appeared on the walls of Orlando’s study. These pristine drawings became ever more heavily annotated in Orlando’s neat hand and were soon accompanied by a set of what were allegedly thermodynamic calculations but appeared to Jonty’s eye to be ancient hieroglyphs. Still, this project was keeping Orlando both happy and out of mischief.

Over dinner, the Wednesday before their visit, Orlando announced that all his work was done and that he’d be dropping it into Applecross’s pigeonhole next time he was passing St Thomas’s.

“It has been something of an eye-opener. I find it fascinating how we’ve appeared to regress as a race. There were the Romans living in what, to all intents and purposes, could be the kind of house we have, with stone walls, a tiled roof and windows. Heated floors and walls to match our heating system. Running water, baths and latrines. Glass in the windows and on the table. It’s taken over a thousand years to return to that degree of comfort and engineering.”

Jonty nodded, remembering how that very point had been discussed when they’d been shown over the dig, but no doubt Orlando had been too absorbed by difficult sums—or whatever else was going on in that complicated if attractive head of his—to take proper notice. “Let us hope that Greysands Manor proves to be more in keeping with its Roman predecessor than an Iron Age hut.”

***

The Byrds’s house seemed more architecturally consistent than the Stewarts’s Old Manor, which was a bit of a hotch-potch. Greysands was definitely more splendid in its size and aspect than Jonty’s ancestral home and promised every comfort. That was plain from the moment they approached the building in the metal monster, let alone stepped through the door. Still, it didn’t take long to realise the place definitely lacked in one important matter compared to Jonty’s family estate in Sussex. It didn’t feel like a home.

The Old Manor had rung through the years to the joyous shouts of children, had been the scene of many a game of hide and seek, playing at pirates or snowball throwing, to name but a few things Jonty had indulged in with his brothers and sister when younger. He’d also enjoyed such activities in more recent years, both in his role as a doting uncle and as Orlando’s companion. His lover hadn’t benefited from the blissful childhood Jonty had, so there was much recompense to be made. The Old Manor was a place to be enjoyed, to relax in, to appreciate the company of family and guests. Greysands appeared to be a property to be kept pristine so that it could be shown off to visitors.

Lady Beatrice created a similar impression. Immaculately and expensively turned out, she made a noticeable contrast to her husband’s mode of dress which featured well-made clothes casually worn. While she had received her visitors pleasantly enough, Jonty couldn’t help but feel it was the prestige of his family that was actually being welcomed, with perhaps a smattering of appreciation about the cachet of having notable amateur sleuths to stay.

As they took an early afternoon cup of tea in the drawing room, it being still far too cold to use the terrace, despite the unseasonably pleasant weather, Jonty surreptitiously scanned his surroundings for any sign of the Byrd family. He’d come prepared, his father having supplied the details of his lordship’s generation, sires and offspring. While he said he only knew the Byrds vaguely, Mr Stewart had no doubt obtained all the facts that weren’t obtainable in Burke’s from his wide and sometimes mysterious set of contacts. There was a son, the heir, presently residing with his wife and two children in the family’s house in Edinburgh and a daughter who was happily living with her husband and small brood in the wilds of Wales. It was said that relations weren’t