I got no further. ‘Of course he was responsible!’ Alice interrupted sharply. ‘Who else could it have been?’
The vehemence of her response struck me as being somehow an overreaction. Or maybe, once again, I was imagining things.
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ I said quietly. ‘Whether Dawn or Lisa . . .’
Again she interrupted me before I could finish.
‘They’d hardly be likely to start the fire themselves, would they?’
What an odd thing to say!
‘Of course they wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m not suggesting that for one moment. I just wondered if there was anyone . . . anything . . .?’
‘No, there’s not. There was just Brian Jennings. Isn’t one stalker enough?’
‘But he couldn’t have been the hit-and-run driver who killed her.’
‘That was an accident!’ Alice protested. ‘And I already told you, I don’t want to talk about any of this. I’d appreciate it if you stopped asking all these questions.’
‘Is everything all right, Alice?’ Lewis Crighton had appeared on the stairs, obviously alerted by Alice’s rising voice.
‘Yes, fine, Mr Crighton.’ The colour had risen in her face, turning her pale complexion a rosy pink. I’d get no more from her, I knew.
‘Perhaps you could give me details of where and when the auction will be,’ I said. ‘I’d like to come along and see if our things sell.’
Alice gave me a leaflet. I thanked her, and left. I hadn’t learned a single new thing, but the feeling that I was on the brink of something sinister was stronger than ever.
As for the silent telephone calls . . . I still couldn’t be sure if Alice was telling the truth when she said Sarah hadn’t passed on my number to her. But if it wasn’t Alice, who had it been? Was it a prank – or something more sinister? I thought again of Josh’s warning that I could be getting myself into something very dangerous indeed, and shivered. But there was no way on earth I was going to give this up now. If there was some kind of cover-up, or worse, I was determined to find out what it was.
It was almost two by the time we got home from Stoke Compton. Mum had sold out of eggs and most of the vegetables, and got rid of quite a few pots of freshly made marmalade. We grabbed some desperately needed lunch – onion soup with cheese-topped croutons floating on it – and I was hoping to be able to get on to Dad’s computer to update my notes, but he was using it to pay bills and enter the details into his account files.
‘How the devil Jeremy can work with this rubbish day in, day out, I don’t know,’ he said. He looked utterly stressed out. Dad, who could deal with all kinds of practical crises on the farm, could be turned into a nervous wreck by his computer.
‘D’you want me to help you out?’ I offered.
‘Oh, go on then.’ Dad relinquished his chair and stood over me issuing instructions while I took over the keyboard and mouse.
‘I really do need a computer of my own,’ I said, when I’d finished. ‘Trouble is, I suppose I’ll have to go into Porton to get one. There’s a PC World there, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, but you’d do better to go to the place I use, on the industrial estate,’ Dad said. ‘If anything goes wrong you can always call on them to sort you out. We’ll give them a call on Monday, see if they’ve got anything in stock that would suit you.’
‘Good plan.’ I was really missing my laptop.
I jammed the memory stick Dad had lent me into the computer port and worked for an hour or so on my notes before a dinner of one of Mum’s casseroles and an evening spent watching yet another re-run of Dad’s Army, The National Lottery Show and Casualty on the television.
Perhaps because I’d recently been so badly let down by Tim, I couldn’t quite shake the irrational fear that Josh would stand me up on Sunday, so when the doorbell rang just after half past two my heart leapt as if I was a teenager on a first date.
‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked when I was installed in the passenger seat of the Peugeot.
‘I really don’t mind.’ It was true, I didn’t. Just being with Josh was enough.
‘I was thinking about Longleat Safari Park,’ he suggested. ‘It shouldn’t be too crowded at this time of year, and we could be there in an hour or so.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
Josh was right; the long summer queues were missing and we were able to drive straight into the estate, and then through the checkpoint into the safari park.
It was a pleasant afternoon, chilly but fine, with clear patches of blue sky between some heavy clouds that might portend rain later. We stopped to look at the giraffes and zebras and Josh took a load of photographs through the open window of the car.