rhythms in the basement; discreet string quartets to converse over in the reception rooms; cool clarinets on the stairs. Now for the first time there was silence. Not even the rumble of distant traffic disturbed the midnight air.
Bella wandered out into the silent darkness. Her heels clipped on the flagstones. The courtyard was open to the sky but it was not cold. A large pale plate of a moon hung in a gun-metal sky, playing hide and seek with billowing clouds, but not a breath of wind stirred the branches of a tall ornamental fig tree in the middle of the courtyard. Someone had wound a string of lights through it. They were shaped like little Chinese lanterns, and the shadows they cast were as still as a painting.
A ironwork table was tucked into one corner, surrounded by fragrant trees in stone pots – a lemon tree, an orange with the fruit nearly ripe, breathing an elusive sweetness into the air, and great wooden tubs of golden-leaved Mexican Choisya, smelling of basil. There was a half-drunk glass of champagne standing on the table, and the guttering remains of a flower-pot candle. Patio chairs were pushed back, as if the people sitting there had left in a hurry.
Bella looked around. But no, the shadowy courtyard seemed deserted. She let herself sink on to one of the vacated seats and found the reason for the astonishing warmth of the little outdoor space: a tall patio heater was lurking among the greenery, like an apologetic butler robot. She laughed a little and patted its conical steel base. It was pleasantly warm to the touch. She felt herself relax as she hadn’t for – how long? Days? Weeks, maybe?
She fished around in the borrowed bag and pulled out the unfamiliar phone. Leaning forward into the pool of wavering light, she managed to see the buttons well enough to send Lottie a text: Running out of steam, will call cab. U?
A text came back almost at once: BBL.
Bella clutched her head. BBL? What did that mean? Oh, hell, less than a year ago she had used this stuff all the time. How could she have forgotten?
The dying candle flickered briefly and she jumped, remembering. Oh, yes. Be back later. Lottie was telling her to go on home and not wait for her. Well, that was a relief.
Bella dialled the minicab service, who told her apologetically that it would be forty minutes, and yes, they knew where to come; they had the address from Ms Hendred’s earlier booking.
‘Thank God for that,’ said Bella with feeling. ‘I didn’t think of that. I’d have had to go and ask someone for the postcode. You’re a star.’
The minicab company clerk was quietly pleased. He said she was welcome.
‘Thank you. Forty minutes, then. I’ll be ready.’
She cut the call and re-checked her messages. No, nothing new had come in. Well, it was a Saturday night. People don’t start texting unexpectedly returning sisters on a Saturday night, do they? They’re out enjoying themselves.
Bella stretched a bit. Then, as she was alone, she thrust her legs out in front of her and wiggled her feet. The strappy shoes were sex incarnate but they were tough on feet that had spent ten months in flip-flops. Bella rotated her ankles in opposite directions and sighed with pleasure.
And then three things happened.
The candle flame suddenly shot up like a rocket and died.
Bella jumped several inches into the air in a sort of dolphin arc and fell back on the very edge of the little patio chair.
The chair recoiled and then lurched past the point of no return. Even the solid ironwork table rocked a bit as, in pure instinct, Bella threw out a hand to save herself. All that she managed, however, was to grab hold of a fistful of the ivy that clad the brick wall to her right. The ivy came away from the wall, descending as rapidly as she did.
‘Shi-i-it!’ gasped Bella, in free fall.
Plant containers, big and small, tumbled around her in a hail of leaves and twigs. She heard them fall and at least one smashed, unmistakably. She came to rest in a mass of tangled ivy, with one arm around the base of a bay tree.
Silence fell, except for the tinkling of pottery shards on the flagstones. Bella lay there, stunned, her eyes closed.
Eventually she got her breath back and opened her eyes.
‘Oh, no,’ she said aloud, in horror
It was like the path of a hurricane, she thought. Devastation!