Ignoring Phoebe's biting teeth, Fred hauled her unceremoniously across the room and bundled her into the hall. Diana pursued him. "What are you doing?" she demanded fiercely, buffeting him around his shoulders with bunched fists. "Put Phoebe down this minute." Benson and Hedges, alarmed by Diana's tone, threw themselves against Fred's legs.
"This door, too, Mrs. Goode, if you please."
She caught a handful of his sparse hair and tugged hard. "Let her go," she grunted.
With a sigh of pain, he swung round, carrying both women with him, and kicked the door to with his foot. Seconds later the French windows shattered inwards into a thousand pieces. "There," he said amiably, setting Phoebe carefully on the floor and removing his hand from her mouth. "We're all right now, I think. If you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Goode, that is a little painful. Thank you." He fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it round his bleeding fingers. "Good boys," he murmured, fondling the dogs' muzzles, "that's the ticket. I don't say I'm not annoyed about another window needing new glass, but this time we'll make sure it's paid for." He opened the door. "Would you excuse me, madam? I'd hate to miss the fun."
Speechlessly, the two women watched his great bulk pad lightly across the broken glass and step out on to the terrace. Beyond, lit by brilliant moonlight, was a scene from Hieronymus Bosch. A grotesque tangle of misshapen figures writhed in hideous and noisy confusion upon the lawn. As Fred, with a curdling roar, charged across the terrace and launched himself atop the melee, Phoebe took in the situation at a glance, whistled up Hedges and pointed to one flying fugitive who had managed to pull himself free. "Off you go, boy." Hedges, barking with excitement, bounded across the grass, bowled his man over and pranced about him, howling his achievement to the moon. Benson, not to be outdone, waddled on to the terrace, sat comfortably on his haunches and raised his old muzzle in joyous unison.
The row from dogs and flailing bodies was deafening.
"Men!" exclaimed Diana in Phoebe's ear and Phoebe, with adrenaline still running rampant in her bloodstream, burst into tears of laughter.
24
The confusion was short-lived. By the time Diana thought of switching on the drawing-room lights, the half dozen vandals had thrown in the towel and were being herded across the terrace by a panting semi-circle of McLoughlin, young PC Gavin Williams, out of uniform, Jonathan, Fred and Paddy Clarke.
"Inside," ordered McLoughlin curtly. "You're all nicked."
Stripped of their menace by the glare of the overhead lamps, they were an unprepossessing bunch of shuffling, sweaty youths with surly faces and evasive eyes. Diana knew them all by sight as lads from the village, but she could put a name to only two of them, Eddie Staines and nineteen-year-old Peter Barnes, son of Dilys and brother to Emma. She looked them over in amazement. "What have we ever done to you? I don't even know who most of you are."
Barnes was a good-looking young man, tall, athletic, an ex-public school boy, now working in his father's print business in Silverborne. He sneered at her but didn't answer. Eddie Staines and the remaining four stared fixedly at the floor.
"It's a reasonable enough question," said McLoughlin evenly. "What have these ladies ever done to you?"
Barnes shifted his gaze. "Which ladies?" he asked insolently. "Do you mean the dykes?"
Barnes's voice, unaccented, interested McLoughlin. The shouts on the lawn had all carried the strangled vowels of the working class. A slight shake of his head kept Diana quiet. "I was referring to Mrs. Maybury and her friends," he said in the same even tone. "What have they ever done to you?" He searched the line of unresponsive faces. "All right, for the moment you will be charged with aggravated assault on the owner of Streech Grange."
"We never touched her," complained Eddie Staines.
"Shut up," said Barnes.
"Never touched who?"
"Her. Mrs. Maybury."
"I didn't say you did."
"What was all that aggravated assault crap?"
"She's not the owner of Streech Grange," McLoughlin pointed out. "Mr. Jonathan Maybury and his sister own this property."
"Oh." Eddie frowned. "We thought it was the dyke's."
McLoughlin arched an eyebrow. "Do you mean Mrs. Maybury?"
"You soft in the head, or what?"
"That," murmured McLoughlin mildly, "would appear to be your privilege. Eddie Staines, is it?"
"Yeah."
"Keep your big mouth shut, you ignorant turd," Barnes grated through clenched teeth.
A cold gleam lit McLoughlin's eyes. "Well, well, Paddy, you were right. It's the jumped-up little oik who calls the shots. So what's his problem?"
"His mother," was Paddy's laconic reply.
The boy threw him a murderous glance.
Paddy gave an indifferent shrug. "I'm sorry for you, lad. If you'd had half your sister's sense, you'd have got by. You'd have raised two fingers to that stupid bitch with her twisted ambitions, and you'd have kept your sanity. Try asking yourself who Emma's really screwing when she comes up here and spreads her legs." He glanced at McLoughlin. "Ever heard the expression, a beggar on horseback? A beggar comes into a bit of money, buys a horse to raise himself up, only to find he can't ride the damn thing. That's Dilys Barnes. She came a cropper when she set her sights too high and moved the family into Streech. No harm in that, of course. It's a free country. But you don't, if you've any sense, treat one end of the village like muck because you think they're beneath you, while you lick the backsides of the other end and brandish your painfully transparent family tree under their noses. That way, you alienate everybody."
Peter's face worked unpleasantly. "Bastard!" he hissed.
Paddy let it pass. "People laughed at her, of course. They would. Social climbing's a spectator sport in a place like this, and Dilys was never any good at it." He stroked his chin. "She's a very unintelligent woman. She couldn't grasp the first rule, that class is in inverse proportion to its relevance." His eyes flickered over Peter. "You'll need a translation, lad. The classier you are the less you have to talk about it."
Barnes bunched his fists. "Fuck you, Paddy. Cheap Irish trash, that's all you are." Fleetingly, McLoughlin had the odd impression that the boy was enjoying himself.
A deep laugh rumbled in Paddy's throat. "I'll take it as a compliment, lad. It's a long time since anyone's recognised the Irish in me." He dodged a flying fist. "Jesus Christ!" he said crossly. "You're even more stupid than your mother, despite your fancy education and the puffed-up ideas she's given you." He wagged a finger at Phoebe. "It's your fault, woman. You made a laughingstock of her and, believe me, you don't do that to the Dilys Barneses of this world. She has a poisoned callus on her soul for every slight, true or imagined, that she's suffered, and the biggest and the most venomous is the one you gave her. She's fed her venom to this little creep by the bucketload."
Phoebe looked at him in astonishment. "I hardly know her. She made a scene by the village pond once but I was far too angry to laugh."
"Before David went missing," he prompted. "He did the real damage. He repeated the story in the pub and it was all round the village before you could say Jack Robinson."
Phoebe stared at him blankly and shook her head.
He reached down to scratch the ears of the old Labrador lying at his feet. "When Benson was little more than a puppy? Dilys caught him humping her Pekinese." His eyes twinkled encouragingly. "Harangued you over the telephone for not keeping him under better control."
"Oh, good God!" Phoebe clapped her hands to her face. "Not my Barnes pun. But it was a joke," she protested. "You're not going to tell me she took it personally. I was referring to her Peke. The damn thing was on heat and she let it out, reeking of pheromones."