She waited while the message was passed and finally her husband came on the line. 'What in God's name are you doing?' he demanded angrily.
'You had better come home, dear,' said Ernestine coldly.
'Home? Now? Why? What's the matter? Has someone died?'
'In a way, yes, you could put it like that,' said Ernestine. 'If you want to know more, phone Fergus at Drumstruthie, but I think it would be better to do it here. I'll wait up for you.' She put the phone down and went through to the kitchen to make herself a nice...a cup of tea. Nice it wasn't.
By morning the search for Timothy Bright had begun.
In the old nursery at the Midden Timothy Bright lay in bed staring at the terrible scratch-marks on the thick wooden door and wondered where on earth he was. And all the time he tried to remember what had happened to him. He could recall being on the motorcycle going down to Uncle Victor's cottage, but that seemed a long time ago. Even the ride was isolated from the events that had led up to it and for a while he couldn't remember why he had gone down to Fowey. But gradually, as the effects of the drugs and his concussion wore off, he began to get glimmerings of that awful past. One sudden insight would suddenly lead to a much fuller recollection so that he jumped back to the casino and Mr Markinkus wanting to be paid in full in ten days. Then another jump, this time forward, to the man with the cut-throat razor in a wine bar and borrowing Aunt Boskie's shares. And selling them.
It was at this point that terror intervened to prevent him thinking at all and he lay back on the mattress almost green with fear. The knowledge that he had sold Aunt Boskie's shares filled him with greater panic than the threats by Mr Markinkus and Brian Smith. He could see now it had been the worst thing to do. He could always have evaded those cheap spivs by falling back behind the ranks of the family. Brights would always take care of their own if things got really awkward. They did it to protect the family name. But now it was different. He had sold Aunt Boskie's shares and couldn't give the money back and he would never be forgiven. His panic surged to such new levels he almost saw himself for what he was before the clouds of self-delusion and pity closed again and he was poor Timothy who had been hard done by. And what had happened to all that money he had taken from the bank? It had to be somewhere. Timothy Bright summoned up every scrap of memory he could to solve the mystery. He had put the money neatly into a big briefcase. He remembered that. And he had...No, he couldn't be sure he had taken the briefcase down to the bike. He had the impression that someone had phoned just then...No, something had happened. He tried the other end of the journey. Had he had the briefcase with him then? He had been so conscious of the parcel that looked like a shoe box which must have contained money too. In that case he must have taken the briefcase as well. And it must still be at Uncle Victor's. Oh God, he had to get down there and...He was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Midden.
'Have you got a surname yet?' she demanded.
'It's Bright. I'm Timothy Bright. Look here, can't you get me my clothes?'
'No,' said Miss Midden. 'You came here naked and you're going to stay that way until I find out why you came and who with and what exactly has been going on. You can use the towel to make yourself faintly decent.'
'But I can't stay here. I mean I don't know who you are or where this is and it's terribly important...' He stopped. He mustn't tell this woman anything more. He shouldn't have told her his name.
'What's so terribly important?' she asked.
'Nothing,' said Timothy Bright defiantly.
'Which is what you'll be having for breakfast,' said Miss Midden and went out and locked the door.
Timothy Bright got up off the mattress and looked through the bars at the open fell. There was no one in sight. Some sheep were grazing by the bank of an old track that ran away over a slight rise towards some distant blue hills. Far away the sunlight glinted on the water of the reservoir, but the sight did nothing to stir his memory. Instead another memory had surfaced. It had something to do with Uncle Benderby's yacht...Oh God, the brown paper parcel! He'd had to take it to Spain. As the memories, all of them quite dreadful, bubbled up, Timothy Bright became almost immobilized. At least where he was, in this room, he was safe for the time being. He didn't want to think any more. He lay down under the bloodstained duvet and tried to sleep.
In his office at Police Headquarters the Chief Constable pushed the report on the weekend's activities away from him and wondered how he could possibly broach the subject of the anonymous phone call about the Midden Farm without arousing suspicion that he had made it himself. There was obviously no way unless...He sent for the Head of the Serious Crime Squad.
'Ah, Rascombe,' he said. 'A splendid bash on Saturday night. My congratulations. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Did you have any more trouble from the media?'
'The Saphegie brothers took their minds off our affairs, sir.'
'The Saphegie brothers? Are they back in business? I thought they had decided to buy their time,' said the Chief Constable.
'Oh, they've paid up all right, sir. Keep to the timetable nicely. But knowing the way the press works, I thought I'd give them the Puddley murder to get their teeth into. Take their mind off our little business.'
'But the Saphegie boys had nothing to do with the Puddley job,' said the Chief Constable, groping towards some sort of understanding.
'That's the point, sir,' Rascombe told him. 'It's no skin off their nose to have the press thinking they do. Enhances their reputation. In the circles they move in it counts, being linked in with a really nasty murder like that. I had a word with them first. Got them to agree, like.'
'Very obliging, I must say,' said the Chief Constable.
Rascombe grinned. 'Like they say, sir, there's no such thing as bad publicity.'
Sir Arnold Gonders said nothing. The absurdity of the maxim had never struck him with quite such force as it did at this moment. However, if the Saphegie brothers, who specialized in debt collection to the point where it spilled over into a protection racket, wanted to be connected in the public mind with the battery-acid murder of an entire family, that was their business. Sir Arnold's interest was quite the reverse. Somehow he had to pin the blame for the intruder on Miss Midden.
'Nothing else I ought to know about?' he asked, and gave the Inspector a very keen look. 'Nothing out of the ordinary anywhere?'
It was the sort of question and look Inspector Rascombe recognized, and in the usual way he would have known how to respond. This time he was at a total loss. 'Any particular area, sir?' he enquired.
Sir Arnold considered for a moment. Rascombe was a good copper, the sort of copper he himself had been, and anyhow he had enough on him to ensure that the Detective Inspector stayed loyal. Even so, the Chief Constable hesitated. It was best to keep certain things under his hat. On the other hand that damned Bea knew and in all likelihood had been party to whoever had dumped the bugger. The Chief Constable still couldn't get his mind round that problem at all sanely, and then there was Mrs Thouless. By this time she had probably been down to get the bread and milk at Solwell, in which case half the neighbourhood almost certainly knew by now. There was nothing for it. It was time to strike back and at least muddy the waters a bit. 'Ever had anyone try to fit you up, Rascombe?' he asked.
The Inspector smiled. 'It's been known,' he said, and understood the Chief's reluctance. He had heard something about Edgar Hoover too, now that he came to think of it. It was difficult to imagine Sir Arnold Fucking Gonders in drag all the same. Horrid.